Chapter 6

DOCTRINAL AND DEVOTIONAL.

"But now, brethren, if I come to you, speaking with tongues: what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either in revelation, or in knowledge, or in prophecy, or in doctrine?"

--ST. PAUL, I. COR. PURGATORY:

DOCTRINAL AND DEVOTIONAL.

DOCTRINE OF SUAREZ ON PURGATORY.

THE PLACE.

It is a certain truth of faith that after this life there is a place of Purgatory. Though the name of Purgatory may not be found in Holy Scripture, that does not matter, if we can show that the thing meant by the name can be found there; for often the Church, either because of new heresies, or that the doctrine of the faith may be set forth more clearly and shortly, gives new and simple names, in which the mysteries of the faith are summed up. This is evident in the cases of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Holy Eucharist.

The doctrine of Purgatory is proved by:--the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Councils of the Church, especially those of Florence and of Trent, the Fathers and Tradition, and by theological reasons.

WHERE PURGATORY IS.

Nothing is said in Holy Scripture about this place, nor is there any definition of the Church concerning it. The subject, therefore, comes within the range of theological discussion. Theologians, however, suppose Purgatory to be a certain corporeal place, in which souls are kept till they pay fully the debt which they owe. It is true that they do not in themselves need a corporeal place, since they are spirits; but yet, as they are in this world, they must, of necessity, be in some corporeal place--at any rate, with regard to substantial presence. Thus we see that God, in His providence, has made definite places for the Angels, according to the difference of their states. Gehenna is prepared for the devil and his angels, whereas the empyreal Heaven is made for the good angels. In this way, it is certain that the souls, paying their debt, are kept in a corporeal place. This place is not heaven, for nothing that is defiled enters there; nor is it hell, for in hell there is no redemption, and from that place no souls can be saved.

PAIN OF LOSS AND SENSE.

The pain of loss is the want of the vision of God and of the whole of our everlasting beatitude. The pain of sense is the suffering of punishment specially inflicted over and above the loss of the beatitude of Heaven.

We must assert that the souls in Purgatory suffer the pain of loss, tempered by hope, and not like the souls in hell, which have no hope.

In the pain of sense we can distinguish two things. There is the sorrow which follows closely the want or delay of the vision of God, and has that for its object. There is also another pain, as it were outward, and this is proportioned to the sensible pain which is caused in us by fire, or any like action, contrary to nature and hurtful to it. That in Purgatory this sorrow does follow the loss of God is most certain; for that loss, or delay, is truly a great evil, and is most keenly felt to be such by those souls that with all their strength love God and long to see Him. Therefore, it is impossible for them not to feel the greatest sorrow about that delay.

* * * * *

We must assert that, besides the pain of loss and the sorrow annexed to it, there is in Purgatory a proper and peculiar pain of sense. This is the more common judgment of the scholastics; and seems to be received by the common judgment and approbation of the Church. Indeed, the equity of the avenging justice of God requires this. The sinner, through inordinate delight in creatures and affection for them, deserves a punishment contrary to that delight; and if in this life he has not made full satisfaction, he must be punished and freed by some such pain as this, which we call the pain of sense. Theologians in common teach this, and distinguish a proper pain of sense from the sorrow caused by the want of the vision of God. Thus they distinguish spiritual pains, such as sorrow for the delay of the vision, and remorse of conscience, from corporeal pains, which come from the fire, or any other instrument of God. These corporeal pains we comprehend under the pain of sense.

* * * * *

Whether, besides the fire, other corporeal things, such as water and snow, are used as instruments for punishing the souls is uncertain. Bede says that souls in Purgatory were seen to pass from very great heat to very great cold, and then from cold to heat. St. Anselm mentions these punishments disjunctively. He says, "or any other kind of punishments." We cannot, therefore, speak of this with certainty.

THE PAIN OF LOSS.

In this matter we may look at the pain of loss as well as the pain of sense. It is certain that the pain of loss is very sharp, because of the greatness of the good for which they wait. True, it is only for a time; yet it is rightly reckoned, as St. Thomas taught, a greater evil than any loss in this life. He and other theologians with him mean that the sorrow also which springs from the apprehension of this evil is greater than any pain or sorrow here. Hence, they conclude that the pain of loss in every way exceeds all pains of this life; for they think, as I have already noted, that this sorrow pertains to the pain of loss, and therefore they join this pain with privation, that the punishment may be greater in every way.... The vision of God and the beatitude of heaven are such that the possession of them, even for a day, could exceed all goods of this life taken together and possessed for a long time.... Therefore, even a short delay of such a good is a very heavy sorrow, far exceeding all the pains of this life. The Holy Souls well understand and weigh the greatness of this evil; and very piercing is the pain they feel, because they know that they are suffering through their own negligence and by their own fault.... There are, however, certain things which would seem to have power to lessen their pain:

1. They are certain of future glory. This hope must bring them much joy; as St. Paul says, "rejoicing in hope." (Roms. xii. 12.)

2. There is the rightness of their will, by which they are conformed to the justice of God. Hence, it follows that, in a certain sense, their pain is voluntary, and thus not so severe.

3. By the love of God they not only bear their punishment, but rejoice in it, because they see that it is the means of satisfying God and being brought to Heaven.

4. If they choose, they can turn their thoughts from the pain of delay, and give them very attentively to the good of hope. This would bring them consolation.

THE PAIN OF SENSE.

It is the common judgment of theologians, with St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure, that this pain is bitterer than all pain of this life.... Theologians, in common with St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, teach that the pain of Purgatory is not in any way inflicted by devils. These souls are just and holy. They cannot sin any more; and, to the last, they have overcome the assaults of the devils. It would not, therefore, be fitting that such souls should be given into their power to be tormented by them. Again, when the devils tempt wayfarers, they do it because they hope to lead them into sin, however perfect they may be; but they could have no such hope about the souls in Purgatory, and so would not be likely to tempt them. Besides, they know that their temptations or harassings would have an effect not intended by them, and would bring the souls from Purgatory to Heaven more quickly.

* * * * *

It is the common law that souls in Purgatory, during the whole time that they are there, cannot come out from the prison, even if they wish; The constant closing of the prison-doors is a part of the severity of their punishment. So teach St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, and St. Augustine.... The reason for this is the law of the justice of God. The souls of the lost are kept in prison by force and against their will. The souls in Purgatory stay there willingly, for they understand the just will of God and submit to it. This law, however, can be sometimes dispensed with; and so St. Augustine holds it to be probable that there are often true apparitions of the Holy Souls by the permission of God.... It is true that, as a rule, these are apparitions of souls, who, by a special decree of God, are suffering their Purgatory somewhere in this world.... One thing, however, we must note in these cases. When such a permission is given, the pain of the soul is not interrupted. This is not only seen from the visions themselves, but is what reason requires.

* * * * *

Here occurs the question whether the Holy Souls pray for us and can gain anything for us by merit of congruity, or, at least, impetrate it for us, as others prefer to say. Some have said that they do not thus pray for us, because it is not fitting to their state, in that they are debtors and, as it were, kept in prison for their debts; and also because they do not see God, and so do not know what is done here. They might know such things by special revelations, but revelations of this kind are not due to their state. But surely their penal state does not necessarily hinder the Holy Souls from praying for, and impetrating for us. They are holy and dear to God; and they love us with charity, remembering us, and knowing, at least in a general way, the dangers in which we live; they understand also how greatly we need the help of God: why, then, should they not be able to pray for us, even though in another way they are paying to God their debt of punishment? For we also in this life are debtors to God, and yet we pray for others.... Besides, we may well believe that the Holy Angels make revelations to the souls in Purgatory about their relatives or friends still living on this earth. They will do this for the consolation of the Holy Souls, or that they may know what to ask for us in particular cases, or that they may know of our prayers for them.

ST. CATHARINE OF GENOA ON PURGATORY.

This Holy Soul, while still in the flesh, was placed in the purgatory of the burning love of God, in whose flames she was purified from every stain, so that when she passed from this life she might be ready to enter the presence of God, her most sweet love. By means of that flame of love she comprehended in her own soul the condition of the souls of the faithful in Purgatory, where they are purified from the rust and stain of sins, from which they have not been cleansed in this world. And as in the purgatory of that divine flame she was united with the divine love and satisfied with all that was accomplished in her, she was enabled to comprehend the state of the souls in Purgatory, and thus discoursed concerning it:

"As far as I can see, the souls in Purgatory can have no choice but be there; this God has most justly ordained by His divine decree. They cannot turn towards themselves and say, 'I have committed such and such sins for which I deserve to remain here;' nor can they say, 'Would that I had refrained from them, for then I should at this moment be in Paradise;' nor again, 'This soul will be released before me;' or, 'I shall be released before her.' They retain no memory of either good or evil respecting themselves or others which would increase their pain. They are so contented with the divine inspirations in their regard, and with doing all that is pleasing to God in that way which he chooses, that they cannot think of themselves, though they may strive to do so. They see nothing but the operation of the divine goodness which is so manifestly bringing them to God that they can reflect neither on their own profit nor on their hurt. Could they do so, they would not be in pure charity. They see not that they suffer their pains in consequence of their sins, nor can they for a moment entertain that thought, for should they do so it would be an active imperfection, and that cannot exist in a state where there is no longer the possibility of sin. At the moment of leaving this life, they see why they are sent to Purgatory, but never again; otherwise they would still retain something private, which has no place there. Being established in charity, they can never deviate therefrom by any defect, and have no will or desire save the pure will of pure love, and can swerve from it in nothing. They can neither commit sin nor merit by refraining from it.

* * * * *

"There is no peace to be compared with that of the souls in Purgatory, save that of the saints in Paradise, and this peace is ever augmented by the inflowing of God into these souls, which increases in proportion as the impediments to it are removed. The rust of sin is the impediment, and this the fire continually consumes, so that the soul in this state is continually opening itself to admit the divine communication. As a covered surface can never reflect the sun, not through any defect in that orb, but simply from the resistance offered by the covering, so, if the covering be gradually removed, the surface will by little and little be opened to the sun and will more and more reflect his light. So it is with the rust of sin, which is the covering of the soul. In Purgatory the flames incessantly consume it, and as it disappears the soul reflects more and more perfectly the true sun, who is God. Its contentment increases as this rust wears away, and the soul is laid bare to the divine ray; and thus one increases and the other decreases until the time is accomplished. The pain never diminishes, although the time does; but, as to the will, so united is it to God by pure charity, and so satisfied to be under His divine appointment, that these souls can never say their pains are pains.

"On the other hand, it is true that they suffer torments which no tongue can describe nor any intelligence comprehend, unless it be revealed by such a special grace as that which God has vouchsafed to me, but which I am unable to explain. And this vision which God revealed to me has never departed from my memory. I will describe it as far as I am able, and they whose intellects our Lord will deign to open will understand me.

* * * * *

"The source of all suffering is either original or actual sin. God created the soul pure, simple, free from every stain, and with a certain beatific instinct towards Himself. It is drawn aside from Him by original sin, and when actual sin is afterwards added this withdraws it still farther, and ever, as it removes from Him, its sinfulness increases because its communication with God grows less and less.

* * * * *

"Since the souls in Purgatory are freed from the guilt of sin, there is no barrier between them and God save only the pains they suffer, which delay the satisfaction of their desire. And when they see how serious is even the slightest hindrance, which the necessity of justice causes to check them, a vehement flame kindles within them, which is like that of hell. They feel no guilt, however, and it is guilt which is the cause of the malignant will of the condemned in hell, to whom God does not communicate His goodness; and thus they remain in despair and with a will forever opposed to the good-will of God.

* * * * *

"The souls in Purgatory are entirely conformed to the will of God; therefore, they correspond with His goodness, are contented with all that He ordains, and are entirely purified from the guilt of their sins. They are pure from sins because they have in this life abhorred them and confessed them with true contrition; and for this reason God remits their guilt, so that only the stains of sin remain, and these must be devoured by the fire. Thus freed from guilt and united to the will of God, they see Him clearly according to that degree of light which He allows them, and comprehend how great a good is the fruition of God, for which all souls were created. Moreover, these souls are in such close conformity to God and are drawn so powerfully toward Him by reason of the natural attraction between Him and the soul, that no illustration or comparison could make this impetuosity understood in the way in which my spirit conceives it by its interior sense. Nevertheless, I will use one which occurs to me.

"Let us suppose that in the whole world there were but one loaf to appease the hunger of every creature, and that the bare sight of it would satisfy them. Now man, when in health, has by nature the instinct for food, but if we can suppose him to abstain from it and neither die, nor yet lose health and strength, his hunger would clearly become increasingly urgent. In this case, if he knew that nothing but this loaf would satisfy him, and that until he reached it his hunger could not be appeased, he would suffer intolerable pain, which would increase as his distance from the loaf diminished; but if he were sure that he would never see it, his hell would be as complete as that of the damned souls, who, hungering after God, have no hope of ever seeing the bread of life. But the souls in Purgatory have an assured hope of seeing Him and of being entirely satisfied; and therefore they endure all hunger and suffer all pain until that moment when they enter into eternal possession of this bread, which is Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Saviour, and our Love.

* * * * *

"I will say, furthermore: I see that as far as God is concerned, Paradise has no gates, but he who will may enter. For God is all mercy, and His open arms are ever extended to receive us into His glory. But I see that the divine essence is so pure--purer than the imagination can conceive--that the soul, finding in itself the slightest imperfection, would rather cast itself into a thousand hells than appear, so stained, in the presence of the divine majesty. Knowing, then, that Purgatory was intended for her cleansing, she throws herself therein, and finds there that great mercy, the removal of her stains.

"The great importance of Purgatory, neither mind can conceive nor tongue describe. I see only that its pains are as great as those of hell; and yet I see that a soul, stained with the slightest fault, receiving this mercy, counts the pains as nought in comparison with this hindrance to her love. And I know that the greatest misery of the souls in Purgatory is to behold in themselves aught that displeases God, and to discover that, in spite of His goodness, they had consented to it. And this is because, being in the state of grace, they see the reality and the importance of the impediments which hinder their approach to God.

* * * * *

"From that furnace of divine love I see rays of fire dart like burning lamps towards the soul; and so violent and powerful are they that both soul and body would be utterly destroyed, if that were possible. These rays perform a double office; they purify and they annihilate.

"Consider gold: the oftener it is melted the more pure does it become; continue to melt it and every imperfection is destroyed. This is the effect of fire on all materials. The soul, however, cannot be annihilated in God, but in herself she can, and the longer her purification lasts the more perfectly does she die to herself, until at length she remains purified in God.

"When gold has been completely freed from dross, no fire, however great, has any further action on it, for nothing but its imperfections can be consumed. So it is with the divine fire in the soul. God retains her in these flames until every stain is burned away, and she is brought to the highest perfection of which she is capable, each soul in her own degree. And when this is accomplished, she rests wholly in God. Nothing of herself remains, and God is her entire being. When He has thus led her to Himself and purified her, she is no longer passible, for nothing remains to be consumed. If, when thus refined, she should again approach the fire she would feel no pain, for to her it has become the fire of divine love, which is life eternal and which nothing mars."

* * * * *

And thus this blessed Soul, illuminated by the divine ray, said: "Would that I could utter so strong a cry that it would strike all men with terror, and say to them: O wretched beings! why are you so blinded by this world that you make, as you will find at the hour of death, no provision for the great necessity that will then come upon you?

"You shelter yourselves beneath the hope of the mercy of God, which you unceasingly exalt, not seeing that it is your resistance to His great goodness which will be your condemnation. His goodness should constrain you to His will, not encourage you to persevere in your own. Since His justice is unfailing, it must needs be in some way fully satisfied.

"Have not the boldness to say: 'I will go to confession and gain a plenary indulgence, and thus I shall be saved?' Remember that the full confession and entire contrition which are requisite to gain a plenary indulgence are not easily attained. Did you know how hardly they are come by, you would tremble with fear and be more sure of losing than of gaining them."

EXTRACTS FROM THE FATHERS. [1]

[Footnote 1: These extracts are purposely different from those quoted by the learned author of "Purgatory Surveyed," in that portion of his treatise herein comprised.]

ST. CYPRIAN [1] writes: "Our predecessors prudently advised that no brother, departing this life should nominate any churchman his executor; and should he do it, that no oblation should be made for him, nor sacrifice offered for his repose; of which we have had a late example, when no oblation was made, nor prayer, in his name, offered in the Church." [2]

[Footnote 1: Ep., xlvi., p. 114.]

[Footnote 2: Cardinal Wiseman commenting upon this passage, says: "It was considered, therefore, a severe punishment, that prayers and sacrifices should not be offered up for those who had violated any of the ecclesiastical laws."--_Lectures on the Catholic Church._ Lecture xi., p. 59.]

ORIGEN, who wrote in the same century as Cyprian, and some two hundred years after Christ, speaks as follows, in language the most distinct, upon our doctrine of Purgatory: "When we depart this life, if we take with us virtues or vices, shall we receive reward for our virtues, and shall those trespasses be forgiven to us which we knowingly committed; or shall we be punished for our faults, and not receive the reward of our virtues? Neither is true: because we shall suffer for our sins and receive the reward of our virtues. For if on the foundation of Christ you shall have built not only gold and silver and precious stones, but also wood and hay and stubble, what do you expect when the soul shall be separated from the body? Would you enter into Heaven with your wood, and hay, and stubble, to defile the Kingdom of God; or on account of those encumbrances remain without, and receive no reward for your gold and silver and precious stones? Neither is this just. It remains, then, that you be committed to the fire, which shall consume the light materials; for our God, to those who can comprehend heavenly things, is called a _consuming fire_. But this fire consumes not the creature, but what the creature has himself built--wood, and hay, and stubble. It is manifest that, in the first place, the fire destroys the wood of our transgressions, and then returns to us the reward of our good works." [1]

[Footnote 1: Homil. xvi al. xii. in Jerem. T. iii. p. 231,232.]

ST. BASIL, or a contemporary author, thus writes, commenting on the words of Isaiah: "Through the wrath of the Lord is the land burned; the things which are earthly are made the food of a punishing fire; to the end, that the soul may receive favor and be benefited." He continues: "And the people shall be as the fuel of the fire." (_Ibid_.) This is not a threat of extermination; but it denotes expurgation, [1] according to the expression of the Apostles: "If any man's works burn, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." (1 Cor. iii. 15.) [2]

[Footnote 1: Cardinal Wiseman in commenting upon this passage, says: "Now, mark well the word purgation here used. For it proves that our very term of Purgatory is not modern in the Church."--_Lectures on the Catholic Church_. Lecture xi., p. 60.]

[Footnote 2: Com. in C., ix. Isai. T. I., p. 554.]

The following is from ST. EPHREM, of Edessa: "My brethren, come to me, and prepare me for my departure, for my strength is wholly gone. Go along with me in psalms and in your prayers; and please constantly to make oblations for me. When the thirtieth day [1] shall be completed, then remember me: for the dead are helped by the offerings of the living. If also the sons of Mathathias, who celebrated their feasts in figures only, could cleanse those from guilt by their offerings who fell in battle, how much more shall the priests of Christ aid the dead by their oblations and prayers?" [2]

[Footnote 1: "The very day," says Cardinal Wiseman, "observed by the Catholic Church with peculiar solemnity, in praying and observing Mass for the dead". Archbishop Corrigan, of New York, in announcing to the clergy of his diocese the death of His Eminence the late Cardinal McCloskey, speaks as follows: "The reverend rectors are also requested to have solemn services for the soul of our late beloved chief pastor, on the _seventh_ and _thirtieth_ day."]

[Footnote 2: In Testament. T. ii., p. 334. p. 371, Edit. Oxen.]

Thus speaks ST. GREGORY of Nyssa: "In the present life, God allows man to remain subject to what himself has chosen; that, having tasted of the evil which he desired, and learned by experience how bad an exchange has been made, he might feel an ardent wish to lay down the load of those vices and inclinations, which are contrary to reason; and thus, in this life, being renovated by prayers and the pursuit of wisdom, or, in the next, being expiated by the purging fire, he might recover the state of happiness which he had lost.... When he has quitted his body, and the difference between virtue and vice is known, he cannot be admitted to approach the Divinity till the purging fire shall have expiated the stains with which his soul was infected. The same fire, in others, will cancel the corruption of matter and the propensity to evil." [1]

[Footnote 1: Orat. de Defunctis. T. ii., p. 1066, 1067, 1068.]

ST. CYRIL of Jerusalem: "Then" (in the Liturgy of the Church) "we pray for the holy Fathers and Bishops that are dead; and, in short, for all those who are departed this life in our communion; believing that the souls of those, for whom the prayers, are offered, receive very great relief while this holy and tremendous victim lies upon the altar." [1]

[Footnote 1: Catech. Mystag., V. N., ix., x., p. 328.]

ST. EPIPHANIUS writes: "There is nothing more opportune, nothing more to be admired, than the rite which directs the names of the dead to be mentioned. They are aided by the prayer that is offered for them, though it may not cancel all their faults. We mention both the just and sinners, in order that for the latter we may obtain mercy." [1]

[Footnote 1: Haer. IV. Lib. LXXV., T. i., p. 911.]

ST. AUGUSTINE speaks as follows: "The prayers of the Church, or of good persons, are heard in favor of those Christians who departed this life not so bad as to be deemed unworthy of mercy, nor so good as to be entitled to immediate happiness. So also, at the resurrection of the dead, there will some be found, to whom mercy will be imparted, having gone through these pains, to which the spirits of the dead are liable. Otherwise it would not have been said of some with truth, that their sin shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come (Matt. xii., 32) unless some sins were remitted in the next world." [1]

[Footnote 1: De Civit. Dei., Lib. XX, c. xxiv., p. 492.]

In another passage he comments on the words of St. Paul: "If they had built _gold_ and _silver_ and _precious stones,_ they would be secure from both fires; not only from that in which the wicked shall be punished for ever, but likewise from that fire which will purify those who shall be saved by fire. But because it is said _he shall be saved,_ that fire is thought lightly of; though the suffering will be more grievous than anything man can undergo in this life."

Let us hear ST. JEROME: [1] "As we believe the torments of the devil, and of those wicked men who said in their hearts _there is no God,_ to be eternal, so, in regard to those sinners who have not denied their faith, and whose works will be proved and purged by fire, we conclude that the sentence of the Judge will be tempered by mercy."

[Footnote 1: Comment. in c. xv., Isai., T. ii., p. 492.]

St. Jerome thus speaks in his letter to Paula, concerning the death and burial of her mother, Eustochium: "From henceforward there were no wailings nor lamentations as are usual amongst men of this world, but the swarms of those present resounded with psalms in various tongues. And being removed by the hands of the bishops, and by those placing their shoulders under the bier, while other pontiffs were carrying lamps and wax tapers, and others led the choirs of psalmodists, she was laid in the middle of the church of the cave of the Saviour.... Psalms resounded in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac tongues, not only during the three days intervening until she was laid under the church and near the cave of the Lord, but through the entire week."

ST. AMBROSE has many passages throughout his works, as Dr. Wiseman remarks. Thus he quotes St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (iii., 5): "'If any man's works burn he shall suffer loss; but he shall be saved, yet so as by fire.' He will be saved, the Apostle said, because his substance shall remain, while his bad doctrine shall perish. Therefore, he said, yet so as by fife, in order that his salvation be not understood to be without pain. He shows that he shall be saved indeed, but he shall undergo the pain of fire, and be thus purified, not like the unbelieving and wicked man who shall be punished in everlasting fire." [1]

[Footnote 1: Comment. in I Ep. ad Cor., T. ii.; in App, p. 122.]

The following is from his funeral oration on the Emperor Theodosius: "Lately we deplored together his death, and now, while Prince Honorius is present before our altars, we celebrate the fortieth day. Some observe the third and the thirtieth, others the seventh and the fortieth. Give, O Lord, rest to Thy servant Theodosius, that rest which Thou hast prepared for Thy Saints. May his soul thither tend, whence it came, where it cannot feel the sting of death, where it will learn that death is the termination, not of nature, but of sin. I loved him, therefore will I follow him to the land of the living; I will not leave him, till, by my prayers and lamentation, he shall be admitted to the holy mount of the Lord to which his deserts call him." [1]

[Footnote 1: De obitu. Theodosii. Ibid., pp. 1197-8; 1207-8.]

He thus concludes his letter to ST. FAUSTINUS on the death of his sister: "Therefore I consider her not so much to be deplored as to be followed by our prayers, nor do I think that her soul should be saddened with tears, but rather commended to the Lord in oblations. For our flesh cannot be perpetual or lasting; it must necessarily fall in order that it may rise again--it must be dissolved in order that it may rest, and that there may be some end of sin." [1]

[Footnote 1: St. Ambr., p. 39, ad Faustini, t. 2, p 944, ed. Ben.]

In his funeral oration upon his brother Satyrus, he cries out: "To Thee now, O omnipotent God, I commend this innocent soul,--to Thee I offer my victim. Accept graciously and serenely the gift of the brother--the sacrifice of the priest."

[Footnote 1: De excessu frateris satyri, No. 80, p. 1135.]

In his discourse on the deceased Emperor Valentinian the Younger, murdered in 392: "Give the holy mysteries to the dead. Let us, with pious earnestness, beg repose for his soul. Lift up your hands with me, O people, that at least by this duty we may make some return for his benefits." [1] Joining him with the Emperor Gratian, his brother, dead some years before, he says: "Both blessed, if my prayers can be of any force! No duty shall pass over you in silence. No prayer of mine shall ever be closed without remembering you. No night shall pass you over without some vows of my supplications. You shall have a share in all my sacrifices. If I forget you let my own right hand be forgotten." [2]

[Footnote 1: St. Ambr. de obitu Valent, No. 56, t. 2, p 1189, ed. Bened.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., No. 78, p. 1194.]

"It was not in vain," says ST. CHRYSOSTOM, "that the apostles ordained a commemoration of the deceased in the holy and tremendous mysteries. They were sensible of the benefit and advantage which accrues to them from this practice. For, when the congregation stands with open arms as well as the priests, and the tremendous sacrifice is before them, how should our prayers for them not appease God? But this is said of such as have departed in faith." [1]

[Footnote 1: Hom. 3 in Phil., t. n., p. 217 ed. Montfauc.]

ST. AUGUSTINE again says: "Nor is it to be denied that the souls of the departed are relieved by the piety of their living friends, when the sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for them, or alms are given in the Church. But these things are profitable to those who, while they lived, deserved that they might avail them. There is a life so good as not to require them, and there is another so wicked that after death it can receive no benefit from them. When, therefore, the sacrifices of the altar or alms are offered for all Christians, for the very good they are thanksgivings, they are propitiations for those who are not very bad. For the very wicked, they are some kind of comfort to the living."

In another of his works he says that prayer for the dead in the holy mysteries was observed by the whole church. He expounds the thirty- seventh Psalm as having reference to Purgatory. The words: "Rebuke me not in thy fury, neither chastise me in thy wrath," he explains as follows: "That you purify me in this life, and render me such that I may not stand in need of that purging fire."

ARNOBIUS speaks of the public liturgies: "In which peace and pardon are begged of God for kings, magistrates, friends and enemies, both the living and those who are delivered from the body."

To these few extracts, which space permits, might be added innumerable others from St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, St. Paulinus, St. Eusebius, Lactantius, Tertullian, St. Caesarius of Arles, St. Bernard, Venerable Bede, St. Thomas Aquinas, and so on down to our own immediate time. Their testimony is most clear not only as regards the custom of praying for the dead, but the actual doctrine of Purgatory, as it is now understood in the Church. They are, in fact, in many cases most explicit upon this point, obviously referring to a middle state of suffering and expiation, and thus refuting by anticipation the objections of those who claim that the primitive Christians prayed indeed for the dead, but knew nothing of Purgatory: a contradiction, it would seem, as prayer for the dead, to be available, supposes a place or state of probation. But, even where the mention made by the Fathers of prayer for the dead does not refer expressly to a place of purgation, it is no more a proof that they did not hold this doctrine than that those modern Catholic authors disbelieve in it, who suppose this middle state of suffering to be admitted by their readers. Or even, which rarely happens, if they be silent altogether upon the subject, it no more infers their ignorance of such a belief than the same silence to be noted in theological and religious works of our own day. It proves no more than that they are at the time engaged in treating of some other subject. The following, which may serve as a conclusion to these extracts, is the solemn decision of the Council of Trent in regard to this doctrine: "The Church, inspired by the Holy Ghost, has always taught, according to the Holy Scriptures and apostolic tradition, that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained receive comfort from the prayers and good works of the faithful, particularly through the sacrifice of the Mass, which is so acceptable to God."

In the thirteenth Canon of the sixth session, it decrees that, "if any one should say that a repentant sinner, after having received the grace of justification, the punishment of eternal pains being remitted, has no temporary punishment to be suffered either in this life or in the next in Purgatory, before he can enter into the Kingdom of God, let him be anathema."

In the third Canon of the twenty-fourth session, it defines "that the sacrifice of the Mass is propitiatory both for the living and the dead for sins, punishments and satisfactions."

VERSES FROM THE IMITATION.

THOMAS A KEMPIS.

Trust not in thy friends and neighbors, and put not oft thy soul's welfare till the future; for men will forget thee sooner than thou thinkest.

It is better to provide now in time and send some good before thee than to trust to the assistance of others after death.

If thou art not solicitous for thyself now, who will be solicitous for thee hereafter.

Did'st thou also well ponder in thy heart the future pains of hell or Purgatory, methinks thou would'st bear willingly labor and sorrow and fear no kind of austerity.

Who will remember thee when thou art dead? and who will pray for thee?

Now thy labor is profitable, thy tears are acceptable, thy groans are heard, thy sorrow is satisfying and purifieth the soul.

The patient man hath a great and wholesome purgatory.

Better is it to purge away our sins, and cut off our vices now, than to keep them for purgation hereafter.

If thou shalt say thou are not able to suffer much, how then wilt thou endure the fire of Purgatory. Of two evils, one ought always to choose the less.

When a Priest celebrateth, he honoreth God, he rejoiceth the Angels, he edifieth the Church, he helpeth the living, he obtaineth rest for the departed, and maketh himself partaker of all good things.

I offer to Thee also all the pious desires of devout persons; the necessities of my parents, friends, brothers, sisters, and all those that are dear to me; ... and all who have desired and besought me to offer up prayers and Masses for themselves and all theirs, whether they are still living in the flesh or are already dead to this world.

ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS MOTHER, ST. MONICA.

[In the beautiful account given by the great St. Augustine of the last illness and death of his holy mother, St. Monica, we find some touching proofs of the pious belief of mother and son in the existence of a middle state for souls in the after life. The holy doctor had been relating that memorable conversation on heavenly things which took place between his mother and himself on that moonlight night at the window in the inn at Ostia, immortalized by Ary Schaeffer in his beautiful picture.]

To this what answer I made her I do not well remember. But scarce five days, or not many more, had passed after this before she fell into a fever: and one day, being very sick, she swooned away, and was for a little while insensible. We ran in, but she soon came to herself again, and looking upon me and my brother (Navigius), that were standing by her, said to us like one inquiring: "Where have I been?" then, beholding us struck with grief, she said: "Here you shall bury your mother." I held my peace and refrained weeping; but my brother said something by which he signified his wish, as of a thing more happy, that she might not die abroad but in her own country; which she hearing, with a concern in her countenance, and checking him with her eyes that he should have such notions, then looking upon me, said: "Do you hear what he says?" then to us both: "Lay this body anywhere; be not concerned about that; only this I beg of you, that wheresoever you be, you make remembrance of me at the Lord's altar." And when she had expressed to us this, her mind, with such words as she could, she said no more, but lay struggling with her disease that grew stronger upon her.

* * * * *

And now behold the body is carried out to be buried, and I both go and return without tears. Neither in those prayers, which we poured forth to Thee when the sacrifice of our ransom was offered to Thee for her, the body being set down by the grave before the interment of it, as custom is there, neither in those prayers, I say, did I shed any tears.

* * * * *

And now, my heart being healed of that wound in which a carnal affection might have some share, I pour out to Thee, our God, in behalf of that servant of Thine, a far different sort of tears, flowing from a spirit frighted with the consideration of the perils of every soul that dies in Adam. For, although she, being revived in Christ, even before her being set loose from the flesh and lived in such manner, as that Thy name is much praised in her faith and manners; yet I dare not say that from the time Thou didst regenerate her by baptism, no word came out of her mouth against Thy command.... I, therefore, O my Praise and my Life, the God of my heart, setting for a while aside her good deeds, for which with joy I give Thee thanks, entreat Thee at present for the sins of my mother. Hear me, I beseech Thee, through that Cure of our wounds that hung upon the tree, and that, sitting now at Thy right hand, maketh intercession to Thee for us. I know that she did mercifully, and from her heart forgive to her debtors their trespasses: do Thou likewise forgive her her debts, if she hath also contracted some in those many years she lived after the saving water.... And I believe Thou hast already done what I ask, but these free offerings of my mouth approve, O Lord.

For she, when the day of her dissolution was at hand, had no thought for the sumptuous covering of her body, or the embalming of it, nor had she any desire of a fine monument, nor was solicitous about her sepulchre in her own country: none of these things did she recommend to us; but only desired that we should make a remembrance of her at Thy altar, at which she had constantly attended without one day's intermission, from whence she knew was dispensed that Holy Victim by which was cancelled that handwriting that was against us (Coloss. II.), by which that enemy was triumphed over who reckoneth up our sins and seeketh what he may lay to our charge, but findeth nothing in Him through whom we conquer. Who shall refund to Him that innocent blood He shed for us? Who shall repay Him the price with which He bought us, that so he may take us away from Him? To the sacrament of which price of our redemption Thy handmaid bound fast her soul by the bond of faith....

Let her, therefore, rest in peace, together with her husband, before whom and after whom she was known to no man; whom she dutifully served, bringing forth fruit to Thee, in much patience, that she might also gain him to Thee. And do Thou inspire, O Lord, my God, do Thou inspire Thy servants, my brethren, Thy children, my masters, whom I serve with my voice, and my heart, and my writings, that as many as shall read this shall remember, at Thy altar, Thy handmaid Monica with Patricius, formerly her husband. Let them remember, with a pious affection, these who were my parents in this transitory life, my brethren under Thee, our Father, in our Catholic Mother, and my fellow-citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which the pilgrimage of Thy people here below continually sigheth from their setting out till their return. That so what my mother made her last request to me may be more plentifully performed for her by the prayers of many, procured by these, my confessions, and my prayers. [1]

[Footnote 1: Conf. B. IX. Chs. XI.-XIII.]

ST. GERTRUDE AND THE HOLY SOULS.

[In the "Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude" we find many instances of the efficacy of prayers for the dead and how pleasing to God is devotion to the souls in Purgatory. From these we select the following.]

Our Blessed Lord once said to the Saint: "If a soul is delivered by prayer from Purgatory I accept it as if I had myself been delivered from captivity, and I will assuredly reward it according to the abundance of my mercy." The religious also beheld many souls meeting before her to testify their gratitude for their deliverance from Purgatory, through the prayers which had been offered for her, and which she had not needed.

* * * * *

As St. Gertrude prayed fervently before matins on the blessed night of the Resurrection, the Lord Jesus appeared to her full of majesty and glory. Then she cast herself at His feet, to adore Him devoutly and humbly, saying: "O glorious Spouse, joy of the angels, Thou who hast shown me the favor of choosing me to be Thy spouse, who am the least of Thy creatures! I ardently desire Thy glory, and my only friends are those who love Thee; therefore I beseech Thee to pardon the souls of Thy special friends [1] by the virtue of Thy most glorious Resurrection. And to obtain this grace from Thy goodness, I offer Thee, in union with Thy Passion, all the sufferings which my continual infirmities have caused me." Then Our Lord, having favored her with many caresses, showed her a great multitude of souls who were freed from their pains, saying: "Behold, I have given them to you as a recompense for your rare affection; and through all eternity they will acknowledge that they have been delivered by your prayers, and you will be honored and glorified for it." She replied: "How many are they?" He answered: "This knowledge belongs to God alone."

As she feared that these souls, though freed from their pains, were not yet admitted to glory, she offered to endure whatever God might please, either in body or soul, to obtain their entrance into that beatitude; and Our Lord, won by her fervor, granted her request immediately.

[Footnote 1: "This seems to refer," says the author of the Saint's life, "to the souls in Purgatory."]

Some time after, as the Saint suffered most acute pain in her side, she made an inclination before a crucifix; and Our Lord freed her from the pain, and granted the merit of it to these souls, recommending them to make her a return by their prayers.

* * * * *

On Wednesday, at the elevation of the Host, she besought Our Lord for the souls of the faithful in Purgatory, that He would free them from their pains by virtue of His, admirable Ascension; and she beheld Our Lord descending into Purgatory with a golden rod in His hand, which had as many hooks as there had been prayers for their souls; by these He appeared to draw them into a place of repose. She understood by this, that whenever any one prays generally, from a motive of charity, for the souls in Purgatory, the greater part of those who, during their lives, have exercised themselves in works of charity, are released.

* * * * *

On another occasion, as she remarked that she had offered all her merits for the dead, she said to Our Lord: "I hope, O Lord, that Thou wilt frequently cast the eyes of Thy mercy on my indigence." He replied: "What can I do more for one who has thus deprived herself of all things through charity, than to cover her immediately with charity?" She answered: "Whatever Thou mayest do, I shall always appear before Thee destitute of all merit, for I have renounced all I have gained or may gain." He replied: "Do you not know that a mother would allow a child who was well clothed to sit at her feet, but she would take one who was barely clad into her arms, and cover her with her own garment?" He added: "And now, what advantages have you, who are seated on the shore of an ocean, over those who sit by a little rivulet?" That is to say, those who keep their good works for themselves, have the rivulet; but those who renounce them in love and humility, possess God, who is an inexhaustible ocean of beatitude.

* * * * *

On one occasion, while Mass was being celebrated for a poor woman who had died lately, St. Gertrude recited five _Pater Nosters_, in honor of Our Lord's five wounds, for the repose of her soul; and, moved by divine inspiration, she offered all her good works for the increase of the beatitude of this person. When she had made this offering, she immediately beheld the soul in heaven, in the place destined for her; and the throne prepared for her was elevated as far above the place where she had been, as the highest throne of the seraphim is above that of the lowest angel. The Saint then asked Our Lord how this soul had been worthy to obtain such advantage from her prayers, and He replied:

"She has merited this grace in three ways: first, because she always had a sincere will and perfect desire of serving Me in religion, if it had been possible; secondly, because she especially loved all religious and all good people; thirdly, because she was always ready to honor Me by performing any service she could for them." He added: "You may judge, by the sublime rank to which she is elevated, how agreeable these practices are to Me."

A certain religious died who had always been accustomed to pray very fervently for the souls of the faithful departed; but she had failed in the perfection of obedience, preferring her own will to that of her superior in her fasts and vigils. After her decease she appeared adorned with rich ornaments, but so weighed down by a heavy burden, which she was obliged to carry, that she could not approach to God, though many persons were endeavoring to lead her to Him.

As Gertrude marvelled at this vision, she was taught that the persons who endeavored to conduct the soul to God were those whom she had released by her prayers; but this heavy burden indicated the faults she had committed against obedience. Then Our Lord said: "Behold how those grateful souls endeavor to free her from the requirements of My justice, and show these ornaments; nevertheless, she must suffer for her faults of disobedience and self-will." ...

Then the Saint beheld her ornament, which appeared like a vessel of boiling water containing a hard stone, which must be completely dissolved therein before she could obtain relief from this torment; but in these sufferings she was much consoled and assisted by those souls, and by the prayers of the faithful. After this Our Lord showed St. Gertrude the path by which the souls ascend to heaven. It resembled a straight plank, a little inclined; so that those who ascended did so with difficulty. They were assisted and supported by hands on either side, which indicated the prayers offered for them.

* * * * *

One day St. Gertrude asked Our Lord how many souls were delivered from Purgatory by her prayers and those of her sisters. "The number," replied Our Lord, "is proportioned to the zeal and fervor of those who pray for them." He added: "My love urges me to release a great number of souls for the prayers of each religious, and at each verse of the psalms which they recite, I release many."

* * * * *

When Mass was offered for the deceased Brother Hermann, his soul appeared to St. Gertrude all radiant with light, and transported with joy. Then Gertrude said to Our Lord: "Is this soul now entirely freed from its sufferings?" Our Lord answered: "He is already free from much suffering, and no human being can form an idea of his glory; but he is not yet so perfectly purified as to be worthy to enjoy My presence, though he is approaching nearer and nearer to this purity by the prayers which are offered for him, and is more and more consoled and relieved."

ST. JOSEPH'S INTERCESSION FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED.

_(From "Le Propagateur de la Devotion a Saint Joseph.")_

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES says: "We do not often enough remember our dead, our faithful departed." Thus the Church, like a good mother, recalls to us the thought of the dead when we have forgotten them, and therefore she consecrates the month of November to the memory of the dead. This pious and salutary practice of praying for an entire month for the dead takes its rise from the earliest ages of the Church. The custom of mourning _thirty days_ for the dead existed amongst the Jews. The practice of saying thirty Masses on thirty consecutive days was established by St. Gregory, and Innocent XI. enriched it with indulgences. "God has made known to me," says the venerable sister Marie Denise de Martignat, "that a devotion to the death of St. Joseph obtains many graces for those who are agonizing, and that, as St. Joseph did not at once pass into heaven--because Jesus Christ had not opened its gates--but descended into Limbo, it is a most useful devotion for the agonizing, and for the souls in Purgatory, to offer to God the resignation of St. Joseph when he was dying and about to leave Jesus and Mary in this world, and to honor the holy patience of this great Saint waiting calmly in Limbo until Easter-day, when Jesus Christ, risen and glorious, released him." And if St. Joseph consoles the souls in Purgatory, none will be so dear to him as those who were devout to him in life, and zealous in spreading a devotion to him.

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES ON PURGATORY [1]

[Footnote 1: Consoling Thoughts of St Francis de Sales. Arranged by Rev. Father Huguet. Pp. 336-7.]

The opinion of St. Francis de Sales was that from the thought of Purgatory we should draw more consolation than pain. The greater number of those, he said, who fear Purgatory so much, do so in consideration of their own interests and of the love they bear themselves rather than the interests of God; and this happens because those who treat of this place from the pulpit usually speak of its pains and are silent in regard to the happiness and peace which are found in it....

When any of his friends or acquaintances died, he never grew weary of speaking fondly of them and recommending them to the prayers of others.

His usual expression was: "We do not sufficiently remember our dead, our faithful departed;" and the proof of it is that we do not speak enough of them. We turn away from that discourse as from a sad subject. We leave the dead to bury their dead. Their memory perishes from us with the sound of their funeral-bell. We forget that the friendship which ends even with death, is never true, Holy Scripture assuring us that true love is stronger than death.

He was accustomed to say that in this single work of mercy the thirteen others are assembled.

Is it not, he said, in some manner, to visit the sick, to obtain by our prayers the relief of the poor suffering souls in Purgatory?

Is it not to give drink to those who thirst after the vision of God, and who are enveloped in burning flames, to share with them the dew of our prayers?

Is it not to feed the hungry, to aid in their deliverance by the means which faith suggests?

Is it not truly to ransom prisoners?

Is it not truly to clothe the naked, to procure for them a garment of light, a raiment of glory?

Is it not an admirable degree of hospitality, to procure their admission into the heavenly Jerusalem, and to make them fellow-citizens with the Saints and domestics of God?

Is it not a greater service to place souls in heaven than to bury bodies in the earth?

As to spirituals, is it not a work whose merit may be compared to that of counselling the weak, correcting the wayward, instructing the ignorant, forgiving offenses, enduring injuries? And what consolation, however great, that can be given to the afflicted of this world, is comparable with that which is brought by our prayers to those poor souls which have such bitter need of them?

CARDINAL GIBBONS ON PURGATORY.

The Catholic Church teaches that, besides a place of eternal torments for the wicked and of everlasting rest for the righteous, there exists in the next life a middle state of temporary punishment, allotted for those who have died in venial sin, or who have not satisfied the justice of God for sins already forgiven. She also teaches us that, although the souls consigned to this intermediate state, commonly called Purgatory, cannot help themselves, they may be aided by the suffrages of the faithful on earth. The existence of Purgatory naturally implies the correlative dogma--the utility of praying for the dead; for the souls consigned to this middle state have not reached the term of their journey. They are still exiles from heaven, and are fit subjects for divine clemency.

Is it not strange that this cherished doctrine should be called in question by the levelling innovators of the sixteenth century, when we consider that it is clearly taught in the Old Testament; that it is, at least, insinuated in the New Testament; that it is unanimously proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church; that it is embodied in all the ancient liturgies of the Oriental and Western Church; and that it is alike consonant with our reason and eminently consoling to the human heart?

* * * * *

You now perceive that this devotion is not an invention of modern times, but a doctrine universally enforced in the best and purest ages of the Church.

You see that praying for the dead was not a devotion cautiously recommended by some obscure or visionary writer, but an act of religion preached and inculcated by all the great Doctors and Fathers of the Church, who are the recognized expounders of the Christian religion.

You see them, too, inculcating this doctrine not as a cold and abstract principle, but as an imperative act of daily piety, and embodying it in their ordinary exercises of devotion.

They prayed for the dead in their morning and evening devotions. They prayed for them in their daily office, and in the sacrifice of the Mass. They asked the prayers of the congregation for the souls of the deceased, in the public services of Sunday. And on the monuments which were erected to the dead, some of which are preserved even to this day, epitaphs were inscribed, earnestly invoking for their souls the prayers of the living. How gratifying it is to our Catholic hearts, that a devotion so soothing to afflicted spirits is, at the same time, so firmly grounded on the tradition of ages.

That the practice of praying for the dead has descended from apostolic times is also evident from the _Liturgus_ of the Church. A Liturgy is the established form of public worship, containing the authorized prayers of the Church. The Missal, or Mass-book, for instance, which you see on our altars, contains a portion of the Liturgy of the Catholic Church. The principal Liturgies are: The Liturgy of St. James the Apostle, who founded the Church of Jerusalem; the Liturgy of St. Mark the Evangelist, founder of the Church of Alexandria, and the Liturgy of St. Peter, who established the Church in Rome. These Liturgies are called after the Apostles who compiled them. There are, besides, the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, which are chiefly based on that of St. James.

Now, all these Liturgies, without an exception, have prayers for the dead, and their providential preservation serves as another triumphant vindication of the venerable antiquity of this Catholic doctrine.

The Eastern and the Western churches were happily united until the fourth and fifth centuries, when the heresiarchs Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches withdrew millions of souls from the centre of unity. The followers of these sects were called, after their founders, Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians, and from that day to the present the two latter bodies have formed distinct communions, being separated from the Catholic Church in the East, just as the Protestant churches are separated from her in the West.

The Greek Schismatic Church, of which the present Russo-Greek Church is the offspring, severed her connection with the See of Rome in the ninth century.

But in leaving the Catholic Church, these Eastern sects retained the old Liturgies, which they use to this day....

During my sojourn in Rome, at the Ecumenical Council, I devoted a great deal of my leisure time to the examination of the various Liturgies of the Schismatic churches of the East. I found in all of them formulas of prayers for the dead almost identical with that of the Roman Missal: "Remember, O Lord, Thy servants who are gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep in peace. To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and peace, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Not content with studying their books, I called upon the Oriental Patriarchs and Bishops in communion with the See of Rome, who belong to the Armenian, the Chaldean, the Coptic, the Maronite, and Syriac rites. They all assured me that the Schismatic Christians of the East among whom they live have, without exception, prayers and sacrifices for the dead.

Now, I ask, when could those Eastern sects have commenced to adopt the Catholic practice of praying for the dead? They could not have received it from us since the ninth century, because the Greek Church separated from us then, and has had no communion with us since that time, except at intervals, up to the twelfth century. Nor could they have adopted the practice since the fourth or fifth century, inasmuch as the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians have had no religious communication with us since that period. Therefore, in common with us, they received this doctrine from the Apostles.... I have already spoken of the devotion of the ancient Jewish Church to the souls of the departed. But perhaps you are not aware that the Jews retain to this day, in their Liturgy, the pious practice of praying for the dead. Yet such in reality is the case.

Amid all their wanderings and vicissitudes of life, though dismembered and dispersed, like sheep without a shepherd, over the surface of the globe, the children of Israel have never forgotten or neglected the sacred duty of praying for their deceased brethren.

Unwilling to make this assertion without the strongest evidence, I procured from a Jewish convert an authorized Prayer-book of the Hebrew Church, from which I extract the following formula of prayers which are prescribed for funerals: "Departed brother! mayest thou find open the gates of heaven, and see the city of peace and the dwellings of safety, and meet the ministering angels hastening joyfully towards thee! And may the High Priest stand to receive thee, and go thou to the end, rest in peace, and rise again _into_ life! May the repose established in the celestial abode... be the lot, dwelling, and the resting place of the soul of our deceased brother (whom the spirit of the Lord may guide into Paradise), who departed from this world, according to the will of God, the Lord of heaven and earth. May the Supreme King of Kings, through His infinite mercy, hide him under the shadow of His wings. May He raise him at the end of his days, and cause him to drink of the stream of His delights!"

I am happy to say that the more advanced and enlightened members of the Episcopalian Church are steadily returning to the faith of their forefathers, regarding prayers for the dead. An acquaintance of mine, once a distinguished clergyman of the Episcopal communion, but now a convert, informed me that hundreds of Protestant clergymen in this country, and particularly in England, have a firm belief in the efficacy of prayers for the dead, but for well-known reasons they are reserved in the expression of their faith. He easily convinced me of the truth of his assertion, particularly as far as the Church of England is concerned, by sending me six different works published in London, all bearing on the subject of Purgatory. These books are printed under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church; they all contain prayers for the dead, and prove, from Catholic grounds, the existence of a middle state after death, and the duty of praying for our deceased brethren. [1]

[Footnote 1: See "Path of Holiness," Rivington's, London: "Treasury of Devotion," Ibid; "Catechism of Theology," Masten, London.]

To sum up: we see the practice of praying for the dead enforced in the ancient Hebrew Church, and in the Jewish synagogue of to-day. We see it proclaimed age after age by all the Fathers of Christendom. We see it incorporated in every one of the ancient Liturgies of the East and of the West. We see it zealously taught by the Russian Church of to-day, and by that immense family of schismatic Christians scattered over the East. We behold it, in fine, a cherished devotion of two hundred millions of Catholics, as well as of a respectable portion of the Episcopal Church.

Would it not, my friend, be the height of rashness and presumption in you to prefer your private opinion to this immense weight of learning, sanctity, and authority? Would it not be impiety in you to stand aside with sealed lips, while the Christian world is sending up an unceasing _De profundis_ for departed brethren? Would it not be cold and heartless in you not to pray for your deceased friends, on account of prejudices which have no grounds in Scripture, tradition, or reason itself?

* * * * *

Oh! far from us a religion which would decree an eternal divorce between the living and the dead. How consoling is it to the Catholic, to think that, in praying thus for his departed friend, his prayers are not in violation of, but in accordance with, the voice of the Church; and that as, like Augustine, he watches at the pillow of a dying mother, so, like Augustine, he can continue the same office of piety for her soul after she is dead, by praying for her. How cheering the reflection that the golden link of prayer unites you still to those who "fall asleep in the Lord," and that you can still speak to them and pray for them!....

Oh! it is this thought that robs death of its sting and makes the separation of friends endurable. And if your departed friend needs not your prayers, they are not lost, but, like the rain absorbed by the sun, and descending again in fruitful showers on our fields, they will be gathered by the Sun of Justice, and they will come down in refreshing showers of grace upon your head. "Cast thy bread upon the running waters; for, after a long time, thou shalt find it again." [1]

[Footnote 1: Faith of our Fathers, chap. xvi.]

THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY.

ARCHBISHOP HUGHES. [1]

[Footnote 1: Answer to nine objections made.]

The Catholic Church does not believe that God created any to be damned absolutely, notwithstanding their co-operation with the means of salvation which were secured to them by the death of Jesus Christ; nor any to be saved absolutely, unless they co-operate with those means. Hence she has ever taught the doctrine which is inculcated in Scripture, that heaven may be obtained by all who shall apply the means which the Saviour of the World has left in His Church for that end: in a word, that every man shall be judged according to his works. This doctrine is consonant with the justice which must belong to the Deity. She knows God is too pure to admit anything defiled into His heavenly abode (Apoc. xxi. 27); and yet too just and merciful to punish a slight transgression with the same severity as is due to an enormous crime. Now, suppose two men to sin against God at the same time, the one by the deliberate murder of his father--for the case is possible--and the other, by a slight, almost inadvertent, falsehood; and suppose, further, that they are both to appear before God the next moment to answer for the deeds done in the flesh, I ask whether it is consistent with the idea we have of divine justice to think that both will be condemned to the same everlasting punishment? If it be, then there is no more moral turpitude in parricide than in telling a trivial falsehood, which injures no one, but still is offensive and displeasing to God. But if it be not consistent with divine justice, then you must admit the distinction of guilt, and consequently of punishment. Now, that God exacts a temporary punishment for sin, after the guilt and eternal punishment are remitted, appears from the testimony of His Sacred Word. St. Paul teaches that the death of the body is a punishment which the sin of our first parent entailed on his progeny; and yet many who have been regenerated by baptism from that original guilt, nevertheless die before they have committed any actual sin whatever. The children of Israel had to leave their bones in the wilderness, after the forty years' sojournment, as a punishment, inflicted by the Almighty Himself, for sins which He had expressly forgiven them. Num. xiv. 20, 22. David was forgiven his sin--and yet he was punished for it, by the death of his child, whom he loved most tenderly. He sinned by numbering his people; and although it was forgiven him, he had still to choose his punishment--either war, famine, or pestilence. If such be the dispensation of God to His creatures in this world, why may it not be also after death? Will you say it is because the body is the medium of suffering in this life? This is not exactly true--the body, indeed, is the medium, in many instances, through which the soul is made to suffer. But God inflicted no corporal chastisement on David by taking his child--it was the king's soul that was touched, and felt, and suffered. Does not the soul remain susceptible of suffering after death; and may not God, conformably with the examples here laid down, extend to it in a future state the same salutary dispensation, for His own just and merciful purposes? But you will ask what Scripture I can quote to show that He really does so. Now, suppose I were to refer you to the same rule, and demand from you the text by which you feel warranted to profane the Sabbath, and sanctify the Sunday in its stead--what will you have to answer in reply? Surely if the authority of the Catholic Church is sufficient to authorize your _practice_ in the one case, it is equally so with regard to my belief in the other. But our situations are very different; because I admit the authority of the Church in both instances, and I shall prove that her doctrine of Purgatory, so far from opposing, is grounded on Scripture. Whereas you reject the Church, you make, as you say, the Scripture the _only rule_ of your faith; and yet when the Scripture says, "Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day," you say I will not sanctify the Sabbath, but I will sanctify the day after.... This tenet of belief is proved by every text of Scripture in which it is implied that God will render to every man according to his works.... If the word Purgatory has anything in it peculiarly offensive, you will not be the less a Catholic for rejecting it, and using the Scriptural word _prison_, provided you admit that such a place exists; in which God after having forgiven the guilt and temporal punishment of their sins, causes the souls of the imperfect just to undergo, nevertheless, a temporary chastisement, as David did in this life, before admitting them into the realms of felicity. Now, if this be so, is it not rational to believe that the mercy of God will be moved by the prayers of His faithful servants on earth, who intercede in behalf of their departed brethren?... In a word, the economy of God to His creatures even in this life is consistent with the doctrine of Purgatory.

PURGATORY AND WHAT WE OWE TO THE DEAD.

ARCHBISHOP LYNCH.

The infallible Church, the spouse of the Holy Ghost, the Pillar and Ground of Truth and the true teacher of the doctrine of Christ, has, in the distribution of her feasts and festivals, set apart one day in the year, the second of November, in favor of the suffering souls in Purgatory. She calls on all her children to assemble around her sacred altars, to assist and pray at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the deliverance from Purgatory of the souls of those who, whilst dying in peace with Our Lord, still had debts to pay to His infinite justice.

These debts were contracted by the commission of mortal sin, whose grievous fault, though removed by the Sacrament of Penance, yet left on the soul a debt which was not sufficiently atoned for, or by the commission of venial sin not sufficiently repented of. Purgatory is one of the great consoling doctrines of the Church of Christ. Only the pure and perfect can enter Heaven; and how few persons leave this earth of temptation, sin, and trouble in that state of purity and perfection! If there were not a place of purification, how few could go straight to Heaven! Nearly the whole human race would be deprived forever of the beatific vision of God. God has chosen this way of exhibiting His justice and mercy: His justice, by exacting the last particle of debt; and His mercy, by saving the poor repentant sinner. God rewards every one according to his works. Some are imperfect through want of pure intention, through carelessness, vanity, or other causes, like the hay and stubble adhering to gold and precious stones which dull their lustre.

* * * * *

Oh, how few are perfect, and how few do penance in proportion to their sins! How few, in their dealing with their fellow-men, giving measure for measure, goods equal to the money paid for them, or services equal to the pay received! How many fail in charity, in words and actions! How many prayers said carelessly and without thought, even at the most solemn times! These will have to be repeated, as it were, in Purgatory. How many will suffer from their want of charity and mercy to the poor, and failing to pay their just dues to God's Church for the spiritual favors they receive from it! "If we give you," says St. Paul, "spiritual things, you should administer to us temporal things."...

All spiritual writers agree that the pains of Purgatory are intense, yet the souls are satisfied to suffer till the last debt is paid. They would not wish to enter Heaven with stains on their souls. God, in His great mercy, has permitted some souls suffering in Purgatory to appear to friends on earth to solicit their prayers and Masses, and to pay their debts. This the Lives of the Saints and Ecclesiastical History at all times attest. In these days when faith is fading from some minds, even in the Church, it behooves especially the Bishops to remind the faithful of their duties and obligations to their departed friends. It is thought by some that an expensive funeral, with its many carriages, and a grand monument over the grave, will satisfy all the requirements of decency and of family love. Alas! if the dead could only speak from their graves, they would cry out and say, "All these monuments and this worldly pageantry only crush us. They only satisfy the vanity of the living, but in no way alleviate our sufferings in Purgatory."...

But the Bishops must, from time to time, remind the people of their duty towards God's servants suffering in Purgatory. In olden times, when faith, love, and affection were stronger than now, devotion towards the souls in Purgatory showed itself in numerous foundations in favor of the souls in Purgatory. Churches and canonries where Masses were celebrated every day by canons and monks, benefices for the education of poor students, hospitals for the care of the sick, periodical distribution of alms to the poor, to have rosaries and other prayers said and pilgrimages made for the souls in Purgatory. All these have been swept away by the ruthless hand of the civil power, wishing to reform the Church; and even at the present day, when the Christian soul is about to appear before the judgment-seat, there are legal impediments in the way of his making by will donations for prayers or Masses. Therefore, my dear people, whilst you are well make provision for your own soul. Do not entrust it to the care of others who cannot love you more than you love yourselves.

* * * * *

This doctrine of Purgatory has always been taught in the Church and handed down from bishops and priests to their successors in the sacred ministry, and by the voice of the people. "Stand fast, and hold the tradition you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle." (II. Thess. ii. 14.) Now prayers and Masses for the dead are to be found in every ancient liturgy of the Church. There is no Oriental liturgy without prayers for those who have departed in peace. The Apostolic Constitutions--the most ancient and genuine work--speak largely of prayers for the dead, for the conversion of sinners.

There are religious congregations and pious associations specially devoted to the relief of the souls in Purgatory. St. Vincent de Paul ordered the priests of his congregation never to go to meals without first saying the _De Profundis_ for the souls in Purgatory. The Church ends all the prayers of the divine office with: "May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace." One may turn away with a sad thought from a tomb on which is not engraved: "May he rest in peace," or on which a cross--the emblem of our hope in God and in a happy resurrection--does not figure.

We exhort you, beloved children in Christ, to entertain an earnest charity towards the souls in Purgatory. You loved them during life; do not let it be said: "Out of sight, out of mind." Love them in death or, living, wishing earnestly to go to God. This charity will greatly help yourselves. If a cup of cold water given to a servant of God shall not go without its reward, how much more a cup of celestial grace, that will shorten the time in the flames of Purgatory of a soul that most ardently longs to see God, who desires it Himself with great love, and will reward those who shorten the exile of His dear servants. "Those," says St. Alphonsus Liguori, "who succor the souls in Purgatory will be succored in turn by the gratitude of those whom they have relieved, and who enjoy sooner, by their prayers, the beatific vision of God."

* * * * *

The Council of Trent, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, has made decrees on the subject which bind the consciences of the faithful. In the Thirteenth Canon of the Sixth Session it decrees "that if any one should say that a repentant sinner, after having received the grace of justification, the punishment of eternal pains being remitted, has no temporary punishment to be suffered, either in this life or in the next, in Purgatory, before he can enter into the Kingdom of God, let him be anathema."

Though King David was assured, after his sincere repentance, that his sin was forgiven, yet the Prophet told him that he had still to suffer by the death of his child.

In the Twenty-fourth Session and Third Canon the Holy Council defines that the Sacrifice of the Mass is propitiatory, both for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and for other necessities, according to Apostolic traditions; and the Bishop, when he ordains, places the patena and chalice, with the bread and wine, in the hands of the young priest and says to him: "Receive the power to offer to God the Sacrifice of the Mass, as well for the living as for the dead, in the name of the Lord. Amen."

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is, therefore, the most powerful means of relieving the souls in Purgatory; next is the fervent performance of the Stations of the Cross, to which so many indulgences are attached; then other indulgenced prayers; for example, the Rosary. Alms to the poor is another powerful means. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

There is another means which our ancestors loved--to educate a student for the priesthood. St. Monica rejoiced, on her death-bed, that she had a son to remember her every day at the altar. If you have not a son you can adopt one, or subscribe, according to your means, to the Students' Fund.

It is the custom in many places--and we wish that it should be introduced where it is not--to receive the offerings of the people on All Souls' Day, or the Sunday previous, or subsequent, and the proceeds to be computed and Masses offered up accordingly.

We attach the indulgences of the Way of the Cross to certain crucifixes, and thus enable persons who cannot conveniently visit the Church to make the Stations there, to gain the indulgences of the Stations by reciting fourteen times the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary," with a "Glory be to the Father," etc., for each Station, and five "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys" in honor of the five Adorable Wounds, with one for the intentions of the Pope.

PURGATORY SURVEYED. [1]

[Footnote 1: Published by Burns & Oates, London.]

FATHER BINET, S. J.

[The following passages are taken from a most excellent and valuable work, "Purgatory Surveyed," edited by the late lamented Dr. Anderdon, S. J., being by him "disposed, abridged, or enlarged," from a treatise by Father Binet, a French Jesuit, published at Paris in 1625, at Douay in 1627, and translated soon after by Father Richard Thimbleby, an English member of the Society of Jesus. Says Dr. Anderdon in his preface: "The alterations ventured upon in this reprint, consist chiefly in the mode of punctuation, which, being probably left to a French compositor, are anomalous, and often perplexing. Some expressions, so obsolete as to prevent the sense being clear, and in the same degree lessening the value of the book to the general reader, have been exchanged for others in more common use.... Let us earnestly hope that, at this moment, on the threshold of the month specially dedicated by the Church to devotion on behalf of the Holy Souls, the joint work of Fathers Binet and Thimbleby may produce an abundant harvest of intercession. If, during their own brief time of trial, they were inspired to put together and to enforce such powerful motives to stir up the faithful to this devotion, will they not now rejoice in the re-production of their act of zeal and charity? During the two hundred and fifty years which have elapsed since the first publication of the French work, many changes and revolutions have taken place in the histories of those spots of earth, known as France and England. But the History of Purgatory is ever the same; "happiness and unhappiness" combined; both unspeakably great; long detention, perhaps, or perhaps swift release, according to the degree of faith and charity animating the Church militant. May we now, and henceforth, realize in act, in habitual practice, and, all the more, from the considerations given in the following pages, the immense privilege of holding, to so great a degree, the keys of Purgatory in our hands."]

Believe it, it is one of the first rudiments, but main principles, of a Christian, to captivate his understanding, and so regulate all his dictamens, that they be sure to run parallel with the sentiments of the Church. And this I take to be the case when the question is started about Purgatory fire, which I shall ever reckon in the class of those truths, which cannot be contradicted without manifest temerity; as being the doctrine generally preached and taught all over Christendom.

You must, then, conceive Purgatory to be a vast, darksome and hideous chaos, full of fire and flames, in which the souls are kept close prisoners, until they have fully satisfied for all their misdemeanors, according to the estimate of Divine justice. For God has made choice of this element of fire wherewith to punish souls, because it is the most active, piercing, sensible, [1] and insupportable of all others. But that which quickens it, indeed, and gives it more life, is this: that it acts as the instrument of God's justice, who, by His omnipotent power, heightens and reinforces its activity as He pleases, and so makes it capable to act upon bodiless spirits. Do not, then, look only upon this fire, though in good earnest it be dreadful enough of itself; but consider the Arm that is stretched out, and the Hand that strikes, and the rigor of God's infinite justice, who, through this element of fire, vents His wrath, and pours out whole tempests of His most severe and yet most just vengeance. So that the fire works as much mischief, [2] as I may say, to the souls, as God commands; and He commands as much as is due; and as much is due as the sentence bears: a sentence irrevocably pronounced at the high tribunal of the severe and rigorous justice of an angry God, and whose anger is so prevalent that the Holy Scripture styles it "a day of fury." Now, you will easily believe that this fire is a most horrible punishment in its own nature; but you may do well to reflect also on that which I have now suggested; that the fury of Almighty God is, as it were, the fire of this fire, and the heat of its heat; and that He serves Himself of it as He pleases, by doubling and redoubling its sharp pointed forces; for this is that which makes it the more grievous and insupportable to the souls that are thus miserably confined and imprisoned.

[Footnote 1: _i.e._, apprehended by the senses]

[Footnote 2: _i.e._, Not implying injury, far less injustice; but simply punishment and suffering]

They were not much out of the way, that styled Purgatory a transitory kind of hell, because the principal pains of the damned are to be found there; with this only difference, that in hell they are eternal, and in Purgatory they are only transitory and fleeting: for, otherwise, it is probably the very same fire that burns both the Holy Souls and the damned spirits; and the pain of loss is, in both places, the chief torment.... Now, does not your hair stand on end? does not your heart tremble, when you hear that the poor souls in Purgatory are tormented with the same, or the like flames to those of the damned? Can you refrain from crying out, with the Prophet Isaias: "Who can dwell with such devouring fire, and unquenchable burnings?" Heavens! what a lamentable case is this! Those miserable souls, who of late, when they were wedded to their bodies, were so nice and dainty, forsooth, that they durst scarce venture to enjoy the comfortable heat of a fire, but under the protection of their screens and their fans, for fear of spoiling their complexions, and if, by chance, a spark had been so rude as to light upon them, or a little smoke, it was not to be endured:... --Alas! how will it fare with them, when they shall see themselves tied to unmerciful firebrands, or imbodied, as it were, with flames of fire, surrounded with frightful darkness, broiled and consumed without intermission, and perhaps condemned to the same fire with which the devils are unspeakably tormented? (Pages 4-7.)

* * * * *

Good God! how the great Saints and Doctors astonish me when they treat of this fire, and of the pain of sense, as they call it! For they peremptorily pronounce that the fire that purges those souls, those both happy and unhappy souls, surpasses all the torments that are to be found in this miserable life of man, or are possible to be invented, for so far they go... Thus they discourse: The fire and the pains of the other world are of another nature from those of this life, because God elevates them above their nature to be instruments of His severity. Now, say they, things of an inferior degree can never reach the power of such things as are of a higher rank. For example, the air, let it be ever so inflated, unless it be converted into fire, can never be so hot as fire. Besides, God bridles His rigor in this world; but, in the next, He lets the reins loose and punishes almost equally to the desert. And, since those souls have preferred creatures before their Creator, He seems to be put upon a necessity of punishing them beyond the ordinary strength of creatures; and hence it is that the fire of Purgatory burns more, torments and inflicts more, than all the creatures of this life are able to do. But is it really true that the least pain in Purgatory exceeds the greatest here upon earth? O God! the very statement makes me tremble for fear, and my very heart freezes into ice with astonishment. And yet, who dare oppose St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Anselm, St. Gregory the Great? Is there any hope of carrying the negative assertion against such a stream of Doctors, who all maintain the affirmative, and bring so strong reasons for it?...

* * * * *

But for Thy comfort, there are Doctors in the Catholic Church that cannot agree with so much severity; and, namely, St. Bonaventure, who is very peremptory in denying it. "For, what way is there," says this holy Doctor, "to verify so great a paradox, without sounding reason, and destroying the infinite mercy of God? I am easily persuaded there are torments in Purgatory far exceeding any in this mortal life; this is most certain, and it is but reasonable it should be so; but that the least there should be more terrible than the most terrible in the world cannot enter into my belief. May it not often fall out that a man comes to die in a most eminent state of perfection, save only, that in his last agony, out of mere frailty, he commits a venial sin, or carries along with him some relic of his former failings, which might have been easily blotted out with a _Pater Noster_, or washed away with a little holy water; for I am supposing it to be some very small matter. Now, what likelihood is there, I will not say, that the infinite mercy of God, but that the very rigor of His justice, though you conceive it to be ever so severe, should inflict so horrible a punishment upon this holy soul, as not to be equalled by the greatest torments in this life; and all this for some petty fault scarce worth the speaking of? How! would you have God, for a kind of trifle, to punish a soul full of grace and virtue, and so severely to punish her as to exceed all the racks, cauldrons, furnaces, and other hellish inventions, which are scarce inflicted upon the most execrable criminals in the world?" (Pp. 9-11.)

* * * * *

It is not the fire, nor all the brimstone and tortures they endure, which murders them alive. No, no; it is the domestical cause of all these mischiefs that racks their consciences and is their crudest executioner. This, this is the greatest of their evils; for a soul that has shaken off the fetters of flesh and blood, and is full of the love of God, no more disordered with unruly passions, nor blinded with the night of ignorance, sees clearly the vast injury she has done to herself to have offended so good a God, and to have deserved to be thus banished out of His sight and deprived of that Divine fruition. She sees how easily she might have flown up straight to heaven at her first parting with her body, and what trifle it was that impeded her. A moment lost of those inebriating joys, seems to her now worthy to be redeemed with an eternity of pains. Then, reflecting with herself that she was created only for God, and cannot be truly satisfied but by enjoying God, and that, out of Him, all this goodly machine of the world is no better than a direct hell and an abyss of evils. Alas! what worms, what martyrdoms, and what nipping pincers are such pinching thoughts as these. The fire is to her but as smoke in comparison to this vexing remembrance of her own follies, which betrayed her to this disgraceful and unavoidable misfortune. There was a king who, in a humor gave away his crown and his whole estate, for the present refreshment of a cup of cold water; but, returning a little to himself and soberly reflecting what he had done, had like to have run stark mad to see the strange, irreparable folly he had committed. To lose a year, or two years (to say no more), of the beatifical vision for a glass of water, for a handful of earth, for the love of a fading beauty, for a little air of worldly praise, a mere puff of honor--ah! it is the hell of Purgatory to a soul that truly loves God and frames a right conceit of things. (Pp. 14, 15.)

* * * * *

Confusion is one of the most intolerable evils that can befall a soul; and, therefore, St. Paul, speaking of Our blessed Saviour, insists much upon this, that He had the courage and the love for us all to overcome the pain of a horrible confusion, which doubtless is an insupportable evil to a man of intelligence and courage. Tell me, then, if you can, what a burning shame and what a terrible confusion it must be to those noble and generous souls, to behold themselves overwhelmed with a confused chaos of fire, and such a base fire which affords no other light but a sullen glimmering, choked up with a sulphureous and stinking smoke; and in the interim to know that the souls of many country clowns, mere idiots, poor women and simple religious persons, go straight up to heaven, whilst they lie there burning--they that were so knowing, so rich and so wise; they that were counsellors to kings, eminent preachers of God's word, and renowned oracles in the world; they that were so great divines, so great statesmen, so capable of high employments. This confusion is much heightened by their further knowing how easily they might have avoided all this and would not. Sometimes they would have given whole mountains of gold to be rid of a stone in the kidneys or a fit of the gout, colic or burning fever, and for a handful of silver they might have redeemed many years' torments in that fiery furnace; and, alas! they chose rather to give it to their dogs and their horses, and sometimes to men more beasts than they and much more unworthy. Methinks this thought must be more vexing than the fire itself, though never so grievous.

And yet there remains one thought more, which certainly has a great share in completing their martyrdom; and that is the remembrance of their children or heirs which they left behind them; who swim in nectar and live jollily on the goods which they purchased with the sweat of their brows, and yet are so ungrateful, so brutish, and so barbarous that they will scarce vouchsafe to say a Pater Noster in a whole month for their souls who brought them into the world, and who, to place them in a terrestrial paradise of all worldly delights, made a hard venture of their own souls and had like to have exchanged a temporal punishment for an eternal. The leavings and superfluities of their lackeys, a throw of dice, and yet less than that, might have set them free from these hellish torments; and these wicked, ungrateful wretches would not so much as think on it. (Pp. 31-33.)

* * * * *

Before I leave off finishing this picture, or put a period to the representation of the pains of Purgatory, I cannot but relate a very remarkable history which will be as a living picture before your eyes. But be sure you take it not to be of the number of those idle stories which pass for old wives' tales, or mere imaginations of cracked brains and simple souls. No; I will tell you nothing but what Venerable Bede, so grave an author, witnesses to have happened in his time, and to have been generally believed all over England without contradiction, and to have been the cause of wonderful effects; and which is so authenticated that Cardinal Bellarmine, a man of such judgment as the world knows, having related it himself, concludes thus: "For my part I firmly believe this history, as very conformable to the Holy Scripture, and whereof I can have no doubt without wronging truth and wounding my own conscience, which ought readily to yield assent unto that which is attested by so many and so credible witnesses and confirmed by such holy and admirable events."

About the year of our Lord 690, a certain Englishman, in the county of Northumberland, by name Brithelmus, being dead for a time, was conducted to the place of Purgatory by a guide, whose countenance and apparel was full of light; you may imagine it was his good Angel. Here he was shown two broad valleys of a vast and infinite length, one full of glowing firebrands and terrible flames, the other as full of hail, ice, and snow; and in both these were innumerable souls, who, as with a whirlwind, were tossed up and down out of the intolerable scorching flames, into the insufferable rigors of cold, and out of these into those again, without a moment of repose or respite. This he took to be hell, so frightful were those torments; but his good Angel told him no, it was Purgatory, where the souls did penance for their sins, and especially such as had deferred their conversion until the hour of death; and that many of them were set free before the Day of Judgment for the good prayers, alms, and fasts of the living, and chiefly by the holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Now this holy man, being raised again from death to life by the power of God, first made a faithful relation of all that he had seen, to the great amazement of the hearers, then retired him self into the church and spent the whole night in prayer; and soon after, gave away his whole estate, partly to his wife and children, partly to the poor, and taking upon him the habit and profession of a monk, led so austere a life that even if his tongue had been silent, yet his life and conversation spake aloud what wonders he had seen in the other world. Sometimes they would see him, old as he was, in freezing water up to his ears, praying and singing with much sweetness and incredible fervor; and if they asked him, "Brother, alas! how can you suffer such sharp and biting cold?" "O my friends," would he say, "I have seen other manner of cold than this." Thus, when he even groaned under the voluntary burden of a world of most cruel mortifications, and was questioned how it was possible for a weak and broken body like his to undergo such austerities, "Alas! my dear brethren," would he still say, "I have seen far greater austerities than these: they are but roses and perfumes in comparison of what I have seen in the subterraneous lakes of Purgatory." And in these kinds of austerities he spent the remainder of his life and made a holy end, and purchased an eternal paradise, for having had but a sight of the pains of Purgatory. And we, dear Christians, if we believed in good earnest, or could but once procure to have a true sight or apprehension of them, should certainly have other thoughts and live in another fashion than we do. (Pp. 44-46.)

* * * * *

Now, would you clearly see how the souls can at the same instant swim in a paradise of delights and yet be overwhelmed with the hellish torments of Purgatory? Cast your eyes upon the holy martyrs of God's Church, and observe their behavior. They were torn, mangled, dismembered, flayed alive, racked, broiled, burnt--and tell me, was not this to live in a kind of hell? And yet, in the very height of their torments their hearts and souls were ready to leap for joy; you would have taken them to be already transported into heaven. Hear them but speak for themselves. "O lovely cross," cried out St. Andrew, "made beautiful by the precious Body of Christ, how long have I desired thee, and with what care have I sought thee! and now, that I have found thee, receive me into thine arms, and lift me up to my dear Redeemer! O death, [1] how amiable art thou in my eyes, and how sweet is thy cruelty!" "Your coals," said St. Cecily, "your flaming firebrands, and all the terrors of death, are to me but as so many fragrant roses and lilies, sent from heaven." "Shower down upon me," cried St. Stephen, "whole deluges of stones, whilst I see the heavens open and Jesus Christ standing at the right side of His Eternal Father, to behold the fidelity of His champion." "Turn," exclaimed St. Lawrence, "oh! turn, the other side, thou cruel tyrant, this is already broiled, and cooked fit for thy palate. Oh, how well am I pleased to suffer this little Purgatory for the love of my Saviour!" "Make haste, O my soul," cried St. Agnes, "to cast thyself upon the bed of flames which thy dear Spouse has prepared for thee!" "Oh," cried St. Felicitas, and the mother of the Machabees, "Oh, that I had a thousand children, or a thousand lives, to sacrifice them all to my God. What a pleasure it is to suffer for so good a cause!" "Welcome tyrants, tigers, lions," writes St. Ignatius the Martyr; "let all the torments that the devils can invent come upon me, so I may enjoy my Saviour. I am the wheat of Christ; oh, let me be ground with the lions' teeth. Now I begin indeed to be the disciple of Christ." "Oh, the happy stroke of a sword," might St. Paul well exclaim, "that no sooner cuts off my head, but it makes a breach for my soul to enter into heaven. Let it be far from me to glory in anything, but in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let all evils band against me, and let my body be never so overloaded with afflictions, the joy of my heart will be sure to have the mastery, and my soul will be still replenished with such heavenly consolations that no words, nor even thoughts, are able to express it."

[Footnote 1: From the author's text, it seems doubtful whether this sentence is to be attributed to St. Andrew or St. Cecilia.]

You may imagine, then, that the souls, once unfettered from the body, may, together with their torments, be capable of great comforts and divine favors, and break forth into resolute, heroical, and even supercelestial acts.

* * * * *

But there is yet something of a higher nature to be said.... We have all the reason in the world to believe that God, of His infinite goodness, inspires these holy souls with a thousand heavenly lights, and such ravishing thoughts, that they cannot but take themselves to be extremely happy: so happy that St. Catherine of Genoa professed she had learnt of Almighty God that, excepting only the blessed Saints in heaven, there were no joys comparable to those of the souls in Purgatory. "For," said she, "when they consider that they are in the hands of God, in a place deputed for them by His holy providence, and just where God would have them, it is not to be expressed what a sweetness they find in so loving a thought: and certainly they had infinitely rather be in Purgatory, to comply with His divine pleasure, than be in Paradise, with violence to His justice, and a manifest breach of the ordinary laws of the house of God. I will say more," continued she: "it cannot so much as steal into their thoughts to desire to be anywhere else than where they are. Seeing that God has so placed them, they are not at all troubled that others get out before them; and they are so absorbed in this profound meditation, of being at God's disposal, in the bosom of His sweet providence, that they cannot so much as dream of being anywhere else. So that, methinks, those kind expressions of Almighty God, by His prophets, to His chosen people, may be fitly applied to the unhappy and yet happy condition of these holy souls. 'Rejoice, my people,' says the loving God; 'for I swear unto you by Myself, that when you shall pass through flames of fire, they shall not hurt you: I shall be there with you; I shall take off the edge, and blunt the points, of those piercing flames. I will raise the bright Aurora in your darkness; and the darkness of your nights shall outshine the midday. I will pour out My peace into the midst of your hearts, and replenish your souls with the bright shining lights of heaven. You shall be as a paradise of delights, bedewed with a living fountain of heavenly waters. You shall rejoice in your Creator, and I will raise you above the height of mountains, and nourish you with manna and the sweet inheritance of Jacob; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it: and it cannot fail, but shall be sure to fall out so, because He hath spoken it'" (Pp. 61, 62).

* * * * *

But let not this discourse cool your charity; lest, seeing the souls enjoy so much comfort in Purgatory, your compassion for them grow slack, and so continue not equal to their desert. Remember, then, that notwithstanding all these comforts here rehearsed, the poor creatures cease not to be grievously tormented; and consequently have extreme need of all your favorable assistance and pious endeavors. When Christ Jesus was in His bitter agony, sweating blood and water, the superior part of His soul enjoyed God and His glory, and yet His body was so oppressed with sorrow, that He was ready to die, and was content to be comforted by an Angel. In like manner, these holy souls have indeed great joys; but feel withal such bitter torments, that they stand in great need of our help. So that you will much wrong them, and me, too, to stand musing so long upon their joys, as not to afford them succor. (P. 80.)

* * * * *

In the history of the incomparable order of the great St. Dominic, it is authentically related that one of the first of those holy, religious men was wont to say, that he found himself not so much concerned to pray for the souls in Purgatory, because they are certain of their salvation; and that, upon this account, we ought not, in his judgment, to be very solicitous for them, but ought rather to bend our whole care to help sinner, to convert the wicked, and to secure such souls as are uncertain of their salvation, and probably certain of their damnation, as leading very evil lives. Here it is, said he, that I willingly employ my whole endeavors. It is upon these that I bestow my Masses and prayers, and all that little that is at my disposal; and thus I take it to be well bestowed. But upon souls that have an assurance of eternal happiness, and can never more lose God or offend Him, I believe not, said he, that one ought to be so solicitous. This certainly was but a poor and weak discourse, to give it no severer a censure; and the consequence of it was this, that the good man did not only himself forbear to help these poor souls, but, which was worse, dissuaded others from doing it; and, under color of a greater charity, withdrew that succor which, otherwise, good people would liberally have afforded them. But God took their cause in hand; for, permitting the souls to appear and show themselves in frightful shapes, and to haunt the good man by night and day without respite, still filling his fancy with dreadful imaginations, and his eyes with terrible spectacles, and withal letting him know who they were, and why, with God's permission, they so importuned him with their troublesome visits, you may believe the good Father became so affectionately kind to the souls in Purgatory, bestowed so many Masses and prayers upon them, preached so fervently in their behalf, stirred up so many to the same devotion, that it is a thing incredible to believe, and not to be expressed with eloquence. Never did you see so many and so clear and convincing reasons as he alleged, to demonstrate that it is the most eminent piece of fraternal charity in this life to pray for the souls departed. Love and fear are the two most excellent orators in the world; they can teach all rhetoric in a moment, and infuse a most miraculous eloquence. This good Father, who thought he should have been frightened to death, was grown so fearful of a second assault, that he bent his whole understanding to invent the most pressing and convincing arguments to stir up the world both to pity and to piety, and so persuade souls to help souls; and it is incredible what good ensued thereupon. (Pp. 82- 84.)

* * * * *

Is there anything within the whole circumference of the universe so worthy of compassion, and that may so deservedly claim the greatest share in all your devotions and charities, as to see our fathers, our mothers, our nearest and dearest relations, to lie broiling in cruel flames, and to cry to us for help with tears that are able to move cruelty itself? Whence I conclude there is not upon the earth any object that deserves more commiseration than this, nor where fraternal charity can better employ all her forces. (P. 86.)

* * * * *

St. Thomas tells us there is an order to be observed in our works of charity to our neighbor; that is, we are to see where there is a greater obligation, a greater necessity, a greater merit, and the like circumstances. Now, where is there more necessity, or more obligation, than to run to the fire, and to help those that lie there, and are not able to get out? Where can you have more merit, than to have a hand in raising up Saints and servants of God? Where have you more assurance than where you are sure to lose nothing? Where can you find an object of more compassion, than where there is the greatest misery in the world? Where is there seen more of God's glory, than to send new Saints into heaven to praise God eternally? Lastly, where can you show more charity, and more of the love of God, than to employ your tears, your sighs, your goods, your hands, your heart, your life, and all your devotion, to procure a good that surpasses all other goods; I mean, to make souls happy for all eternity, by translating them into heavenly joys, out of insupportable torments? That glorious Apostle of the Indies, St. Francis Xavier, could run from one end of the world to the other, to convert a soul, and think it no long journey. The dangers by sea and land seemed sweet, the tempests pleasing, the labor easy, and his whole time well employed. Good God! what an advantage have we, that with so little trouble and few prayers, may send a thousand beautiful souls into heaven, without the least hazard of losing anything? St. Francis Xavier could not be certain that the Japanese, for example, whom he baptized, would persevere in their faith; and, though they should persevere in it, he could have as little certainty of their salvation. Now, it is an article of our faith, that the holy souls in Purgatory are in grace, and shall assuredly one day enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. (Pp. 91, 92.)

* * * * *

We read in the life of St. Catherine of Bologna, ... that she had not only a strange tenderness for the souls, but a singular devotion to them, and was wont to recommend herself to them in all her necessities. The reason she alleged for it was this: that she had learned of Almighty God how she had frequently obtained far greater favors by their intercession than by any other means. And the story adds this: that it often happened that what she begged of God, at the intercession of the Saints in heaven, she could never obtain of Him; and yet, as soon as she addressed herself to the souls in Purgatory she had her suit instantly granted. Can there be any question but there are souls in that purging fire who are of a higher pitch of sanctity, and of far greater merit in the sight of God, than a thousand and a thousand Saints who are already glorious in the Court of Heaven. (P. 102.)

* * * * *

Cardinal Baronius, a man of credit beyond exception, relates, in his Ecclesiastical Annals, how a person of rare virtue found himself dangerously assaulted at the hour of his death; and that, in this agony, he saw the heavens open and about eight thousand champions, all covered with white armor, descend, who fell instantly to encourage him by giving him this assurance: that they were come to fight for him and to disengage him from that doubtful combat. And when, with infinite comfort, and tears in his eyes, he besought them to do him the favor to let him know who they were that had so highly obliged him: "We are," said they, "the souls whom you have saved and delivered out of Purgatory; and now, to requite the favor, we are come down to convey you instantly to heaven." And with that, he died.

We read another such story of St. Gertrude; how she was troubled at her death to think what must become of her, since she had given away all the rich treasure of her satisfactions to redeem other poor souls, without reserving anything to herself; but that Our Blessed Saviour gave her the comfort to know that she was not only to have the like favor of being immediately conducted into heaven out of this world, by those innumerable souls whom she had sent thither before her by her fervent prayers, but was there also to receive a hundred-fold of eternal glory in reward of her charity. By which examples we may learn that we cannot make better use of our devotion and charity than this way. (Pp. 104, 105.)

* * * * *

The Church Triumphant, to speak properly, cannot satisfy, because there is no place for penal works in the Court of Heaven, whence all grief and pain are eternally banished.

Wherefore, the Saints may well proceed by way of impetration and prayers; or, at most, represent their former satisfactions, which are carefully laid up in the treasury of the Church, in lieu of those which are due from others; but, as for any new satisfaction or payment derived from any penal act of their own, it is not to be looked for in those happy mansions of eternal glory.

The Church Militant may do either; as having this advantage over the Church Triumphant, that she can help the souls in Purgatory by her prayers and satisfactory works, and by offering up her charitable suffrages, wherewith to pay the debts of those poor souls who are run in arrear in point of satisfaction due for their sins. Had they but fasted, prayed, labored, or suffered a little more in this life, they had gone directly into heaven; what they unhappily neglected we may supply for them, and it will be accepted for good payment, as from their bails and sureties. You know, he that stands surety for another takes the whole debt upon himself. This is our case; for, the living, as it were, entering bond for the dead, become responsible for their debts, and offer up fasts for fasts, tears for tears, in the same measure and proportion as they were liable to them, and so defray the debt of their friends at their own charge, and make all clear. (Pp. 117, 118.)

* * * * *

I am in love with that religious practice of Bologna, where, upon funeral days, they cause hundreds and thousands of Masses to be said for the soul departed, in lieu of other superfluous and vain ostentations. They stay not for the anniversary, nor for any other set day; but instantly do their best to release the poor soul from her torments, who must needs think the year long, if she must stay for help till her anniversary day appears. They do not, for all this, despise the laudable customs of the Church; they bury their friends with honor; they clothe great numbers of poor people; they give liberal alms; but, as there is nothing so certain, nothing so efficacious, nothing so divine, as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, they fix their whole affection there, and strive all they can to relieve the souls this way; and are by no means so lavish, as the fashion is, in other idle expenses and inopportune feastings, which are often more troublesome to the living than comfortable to the dead.

But you may not only comfort the afflicted souls by procuring Masses for them, nor yet only by offering up your prayers, fasts, alms-deeds, and such other works of piety; but you may bestow upon them all the good you do, and all the evil you suffer, in this world.... If you offer up unto God all that causes you any grief or affliction, for the present relief of the poor languishing souls, you cannot believe what ease and comfort they will find by it. (Pp. 123-125).

* * * * *

The world has generally a great esteem of Monsieur d'Argenton, Philip Commines; and many worthily admire him for the great wisdom and sincerity he has labored to express in his whole history. But, for my part, I commend him for nothing more than for the prudent care he took here for the welfare of his own soul in the other world. For, having built a goodly chapel at the Augustinians in Paris, and left them a good foundation, he tied them to this perpetual obligation, that they should no sooner rise from table, but they should be sure to pray for the rest of this precious soul. And he ordered it thus, by his express will, that one of the religious should first say aloud: "Let us pray for the soul of Monsieur d'Argenton;" and then all should instantly say the psalm _De Profundis_. Gerson lost not his labor when he took such pains to teach little children to repeat often these words: "My God, my Creator, have pity on Thy poor servant, John Gerson." For these innocent souls, all the while the good man was dying, and after he was dead, went up and down the town with a mournful voice, singing the short lesson he had taught them, and comforting his dear soul with their innocent prayers.

Now, as I must commend their prudence who thus wisely cast about how to provide for their own souls, against they come into Purgatory, so I cannot but more highly magnify their charity, who, less solicitous for themselves, employ their whole care to save others out of that dreadful fire. And sure I am, they can lose nothing by the bargain, who dare thus trust God with their own souls, while they do their uttermost to help others; nay, though they should follow that unparalleled example of Father Hernando de Monsoy, of the Society of Jesus, who, not content to give away all he could from himself to the poor souls, while he lived, made them his heirs after death; and, by express will, bequeathed them all the Masses, rosaries, and whatsoever else should be offered for him by his friends upon earth. (Pp. 131-132.)

* * * * *

It will not be amiss here to resolve you certain pertinent questions. Whether the suffrages we offer up unto God shall really avail them for whom we offer them; and whether they alone, or others also, may receive benefit by them? Whether it be better to pray for a few at once, or for many, or for all the souls together, and for what souls in particular?

To the first I answer: if your intention be to help any one in particular who is really in Purgatory, so your work be good, it is infallibly applied to the person upon whom you bestow it. For, as divines teach, it is the intention of the offerer which governs all; and God, of His infinite goodness, accommodates Himself to the petitioner's request, applying unto each one what has been offered for its relief. If you have nobody in your thoughts for whom you offer up your prayers, they are only beneficial to yourself; and what would be thus lost for want of application, God lays up in the treasury of the Church, as being a kind of spiritual waif or stray, to which nobody can lay any just claim. And, since it is the intention which entitles one to what is offered before all others, what right can others pretend to it; or with what justice can it be parted or divided amongst others, who were never thought of?

And hence I take my starting-point to resolve your other question--that if you regard their best advantage whom you have a mind to favor, you had better pray for a few than for many together; for, since the merit of your devotions is but limited, and often in a very small proportion, the more you divide and subdivide it amongst many, the lesser share comes to every one in particular. As if you should distribute a crown or an angel [1] amongst a thousand poor people, you easily see your alms would be so inconsiderable, they would be little better for it; whereas, if it were all bestowed upon one or two, it were enough to make them think themselves rich.

[Footnote 1: A gold coin of that period so called because it was stamped with the image of an angel.]

Now, to define precisely, whether it be always better done, to help one or two souls efficaciously, than to yield a little comfort to a great many, is a question I leave for you to exercise your wits in. I could fancy it to be your best course to do both; that is, sometimes to single out some particular soul, and to use all your powers to lift her up to heaven; sometimes, again, to parcel out your favors upon many; and, now and then, also to deal out a general alms upon all Purgatory. And you need not fear exceeding in this way of charity, whatsoever you bestow; for you may be sure nothing will be lost by it. And St. Thomas will tell you, for your comfort, that since all the souls in Purgatory are perfectly united in charity, they rejoice exceedingly when they see any of their whole number receive such powerful helps as to dispose her for heaven. They every one take it as done to themselves, whatsoever is bestowed upon any of their fellows, whom they love as themselves; and, out of a heavenly kind of courtesy, and singular love, they joy in her happiness, as if it were their own. So that it may be truly said, that you never pray for one or more of them, but they are all partakers, and receive a particular comfort and satisfaction by it. (Pp. 132-134.)

* * * * *

It would go hard with many, were it true that a person who neglected to make restitution in his life-time, and only charged his heirs to do it for him in his last will and testament, shall not stir out of Purgatory till restitution be really made; let there be never so many Masses said, and never so many satisfactory works offered up for him. And yet St. Bridget, whose revelations are, for the most part, approved by the Church, hesitates not to set this down for a truth which God had revealed unto her. Nor are there wanting grave divines that countenance this rigorous position, and bring for it many strong reasons and examples, which they take to be authentical: and the law itself, which says that if a man do not restore another's goods, there will always stick upon the soul a kind of blemish, or obligation of justice. And since the fault lies wholly at his door, he cannot, say they, have the least reason to complain of the severity of God's justice, but must accuse his own coldness and extreme neglect of his own welfare. Nay, even those that are of the contrary persuasion, yet maintain that it is not only much more secure, but far more meritorious, to satisfy such obligations while we live, than to trust others with it, let them be never so near and dear to us.... (Pp. 140, 141.)

* * * * *

... I have just cause to fear that all I can say to you will hardly suffice to mollify that hard heart of yours; and, therefore, my last refuge shall be to set others on, though I call them out of the other world.

And first, let a damned soul read you a lecture, and teach you the compassion you ought to bear to your afflicted brethren. Remember how the rich glutton in the Gospel, although he was buried in hell-fire, took care for his brothers who survived him; and besought Abraham to send Lazarus back into the world, to preach and convert them, lest they should be so miserable as to come into that place of torments. A strange request for a damned soul! and which may shame you, that are so little concerned for the souls of your brethren, who are in so restless a condition.

In the next place, I will bring in the soul of your dear father, or mother, to make her own just complaints against you. Lend her, then, a dutiful and attentive ear; and let none of her words be lost; for she deserves to be heard out, while she sets forth the state of her most lamentable condition. Peace! it is a holy soul, though clothed in flames, that directs her speech to you after this manner:

"Am I not the most unfortunate and wretched parent that ever lived? I that was so silly as to presume that having ventured my life, and my very soul also, to leave my children at their ease, they would at least have had some pity on me, and endeavor to procure for me some ease and comfort in my torments. Alas! I burn insufferably, I suffer infinitely, and have done so, I know not how long; and yet this is not the only thing that grieves me. Alas, no! it is a greater vexation to me to see myself so soon forgotten by my own children, and so slighted by them, for whom I have in vain taken so much care and pains. Ah, dost thou grudge thy poor mother a Mass, a slight alms, a sigh, or a tear? Thy mother, I say, who would most willingly have kept bread from her own mouth, to make thee swim in an ocean of delights, and to abound with plenty of all worldly goods? ... Who will not refuse me comfort, when my own children, my very bowels, do their best to forget me? What a vexation is it to me, when my companions in misery ask me whether I left no children behind me, and why they are so hard-hearted as to neglect me?.... I was willing to forget my own concerns to be careful of theirs; and those ungrateful ones have now buried me in an eternal oblivion, and clearly left me to shift for myself in these dread tortures, without giving me the least ease or comfort. Oh, what a fool was I! had I given to the poor the thousandth part of those goods which I left these miserable children, I had long before this been joyfully singing the praises of my Creator, in the choir of Angels; whereas now I lie panting and groaning under excessive torments, and am like still to lie, for any relief that is to be looked for from these undutiful, ungracious children whom I made my sole heirs.... But am I not all this while strangely transported, miserable that I am, thus to amuse myself with unprofitable complaints against my children; whereas, indeed, I have but small reason to blame any but myself? since it is I, and only I, that am the cause of all this mischief. For did not I know that in the grand business of saving my soul, I was to have trusted none but myself? did I not know that with the sight of their friends, at their departure, men used to lose all the memory and friendship they had for them?.... Did I not know that God Himself had foretold us, that the only ready way to build ourselves eternal tabernacles in the next world, is not to give all to our children, but to be liberal to the poor?.... I cannot deny, then, but the fault lies at my door, and that I am deservedly thus neglected by my children.... The only comfort I have left me in all my afflictions, is, that others will learn at my cost this clear maxim: not to leave to others a matter of such near concern as the ease and repose of their own souls; but to provide for them carefully themselves. O God! how dearly have I bought this experience; to see my fault irreparable, and my misery without redress!" (Pp. 146-149.)

* * * * *

One must have a heart of steel, or no heart at all, to hear these sad regrets, and not feel some tenderness for the poor souls, and as great an indignation against those who are so little concerned for the souls of their parents and other near relations. I wish, with all my soul, that all those who shall light upon this passage, and hear the soul so bitterly deplore her misfortune, may but benefit themselves half as much by it as a good prelate did when the soul of Pope Benedict VIII, by God's permission, revealed unto him her lamentable state in Purgatory. [1] For so the story goes, which is not to be questioned: This Pope Benedict appears to the Bishop of Capua, and conjures him to go to his brother, Pope John, who succeeded him in the Chair of St. Peter, and to beseech him, for God's sake, to give great store of alms to poor people, to allay the fury of the fire of Purgatory, with which he found himself highly tormented. He further charges him to let the Pope know withal, that he did acknowledge liberal alms had already been distributed for that purpose; but had found no ease at all by it because all the money that had been then bestowed was acquired unjustly, and so had no power to prevail before the just tribunal of God for the obtaining of the least mercy. The good Bishop, upon this, makes haste to the Pope, and faithfully relates the whole conference that had passed between him and the soul of his predecessor; and with a grave voice and lively accent enforces the necessity and importance of the business; that, in truth, when a soul lies a burning, it is in vain to dispute idle questions; the best course, then, is to run instantly for water, and to throw it on with both hands, calling for all the help and assistance we can, to relieve her; and that His Holiness should soon see the truth of the vision by the wonderful effects which were like to follow. All this he delivers so gravely, and so to the purpose, that the Pope resolves out of hand to give in charity vast sums out of his own certain and unquestionable revenue; whereby the soul of Pope Benedict was not only wonderfully comforted, but, questionless, soon released of her torments. In conclusion, the good Bishop, having well reflected with himself in what a miserable condition he had seen the soul of a Pope who had the repute of a Saint, and was really so, worked so powerfully with him, that, quitting his mitre, crosier, bishopric, and all worldly greatness, he shut himself up in a monastery, and there made a holy end; choosing rather to have his Purgatory in the austerity of a cloister than in the flames of the Church suffering. (Pp. 150, 151.)

[Footnote 1: Baronius, _An._ 1024.]

* * * * *

I wish, again, they would in this but follow the example of King Louis of France, who was son to Louis the Emperor, surnamed the Pious. For they tell us [1] that this Emperor, after he had been thirty-three years in Purgatory, not so much for any personal crimes or misdemeanors of his own as for permitting certain disorders in his empire, which he ought to have prevented, was at length permitted to show himself to King Louis, his son, and to beg his favorable assistance; and that the king did not only most readily grant him his request, procuring Masses to be said in all the monasteries of his realm for the soul of his deceased father, but drew thence many good reflections and profitable instructions, which served him all his life-time after. Do you the same; and believe it, though Purgatory fire is a kind of baptism, and is so styled by some of the holy Fathers, because it cleanses a soul from all the dross of sin, and makes it worthy to see God, yet is it your sweetest course, here to baptize yourself frequently in the tears of contrition, which have a mighty power to cleanse away all the blemishes of sin; and so prevent in your own person, and extinguish in others, those baptismal flames of Purgatory fire, which are so dreadful. (Pp. 151, 152.)

[Footnote 1: Baronius, _An_. 874.]

* * * * *

What shall I say of those other nations, whose natural piety led them to place burning lamps at the sepulchres of the dead, and strew them over with sweet flowers and odoriferous perfumes. [1] Do they not put Christians in mind to remember the dead, and to cast after them the sweet incense of their devout sighs and prayers, and the perfumes of their alms-deeds, and other good works?

[Footnote 1: Herod lib. 2.]

It was very usual with the old Romans to shed whole floods of tears, to reserve them in phial-glasses, and to bury them with the urns, in which the ashes of their dead friends were carefully laid up; and by them to set lamps, so artificially composed as to burn without end. By which symbols they would give us to understand, that neither their love nor their grief should ever die; but that they would always be sure to have tears in their eyes, love in their hearts, and a constant memory in their souls for their deceased friends....

They had another custom, not only in Rome but elsewhere, to walk about the burning pile where the corpse lay, and, with their mournful lamentations, to keep time with the doleful sound of their trumpets; and still, every turn, to cast into the fire some precious pledge of their friendship. The women themselves would not stick to throw in their rings, bracelets, and other costly attires, nay, their very hair also, the chief ornament of their sex; and they would have been sometimes willing to have thrown in both their eyes, and their hearts too. Nor were there some wanting, that in earnest threw themselves into the fire, to be consumed with their dear spouses; so that it was found necessary to make a severe law against it; such was the tenderness that they had for their deceased friends, such was the excess of a mere natural affection. Now, our love is infused from Heaven; it is supernatural, and consequently ought to be more active and powerful to stir up our compassion for the souls departed; and yet we see the coldness of Christians in this particular; how few there are who make it their business to help poor souls out of their tormenting flames. It is not necessary to make laws to hinder any excess in this article; it were rather to be wished that a law were provided to punish all such ungrateful persons as forgot the duty they owe to their dead parents, and all the obligations they have to the rest of their friends. (Pp. 156-158.)

* * * * *

It is a pleasure to observe the constant devotion of the Church of Christ in all ages, to pray for the dead. And first, to take my rise from the Apostles' time, there are many learned interpreters, who hold that baptism for the dead, of which the Apostle speaks, [1] to be meant only of the much fasting, prayer, alms-deeds, and other voluntary afflictions, which the first Christians undertook for the relief of their deceased friends. But I need not fetch in obscure places to prove so clear an Apostolical and early custom in God's Church.

[Footnote 1: Cor. xv 29.]

You may see a set form of prayer for the dead prescribed in all the ancient liturgies of the Apostles. [1] Besides, St. Clement [2] tells us, it was one of the chief heads of St. Peter's sermons, to be daily inculcating to the people this devotion of praying for the dead; and St. Denis [3] sets down at large the solemn ceremonies and prayers, which were then used at funerals; and receives them no otherwise than as Apostolical traditions, grounded upon the Word of God. And certainly, it would have done you good to have seen with what gravity and devotion that venerable prelate performed the divine office and prayer for the dead, and what an ocean of tears he drew from the eyes of all that were present.

[Footnote 1: Liturgia utrinque, S. Jacobi, S. Math., S. Marci, S. Clem.]

[Footnote 2: Epist. I.]

[Footnote 3: S Dion. _Eccles. Hier_. C. 7.]

Let Tertullian [1] speak for the next age. He tells us how carefully devout people in his time kept the anniversaries of the dead, and made their constant oblations for the sweet rest of their souls. "Here it is," says this grave author, "that the widow makes it appear whether or no she had any true love for her husband; if she continue yearly to do her best for the comfort of his soul." ... Let your first care be, to ransom him out of Purgatory, and when you have once placed him in the empyrean heaven, he will be sure to take care for you and yours. I know your excuse is, that having procured for him the accustomed services of the Church, you need do no more for him; for you verily believe he is already in a blessed state. But this is rather a poor shift to excuse your own sloth and laziness, than that you believe it to be so in good earnest. For there is no man, says Origen, but the Son of God, can guess how long, or how many ages, a soul may stand in need of the purgation of fire. Mark the word _ages_; he seems to believe that a soul may, for whole ages--that is, for so many hundred years--be confined to this fiery lake, if she be wholly left to herself and her own sufferings.

[Footnote 1: Tertull. _De cor. mil. c 3; _De monogam, c. 10.]

It was not without confidence, says Eusebius, of reaping more fruit from the prayers of the faithful, that the honor of our nation, and the first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, took such care to be buried in the Church of the Apostles, whither all sorts of devout people resorting to perform their devotions to God and His Saints, would be sure to remember so good an emperor. Nor did he fail of his expectation; for it is incredible, as the same author observes, what a world of sighs and prayers were offered up for him upon this occasion.

St. Athanasius [1] brings an elegant comparison to express the incomparable benefit which accrues to the souls in Purgatory by our prayers. As the wine, says he, which is locked up in the cellar, yet is so recreated with the sweet odor of the flourishing vines which are growing in the fields, as to flower afresh, and leap, as it were, for joy, so the souls that are shut up in the centre of the earth feel the sweet incense of our prayers, and are exceedingly comforted and refreshed by it.

[Footnote 1: St. Augustine's views on this subject may be seen from the extract elsewhere given, from his "Confessions," on the occasion of the death of his mother, St. Monica.]

We do not busy ourselves, says St. Cyril, with placing crowns or strewing flowers at the sepulchres of the dead; but we lay hold on Christ, the very Son of God, who was sacrificed upon the Cross for our sins: and we offer Him up again to His Eternal Father in the dread Sacrifice of the Mass, as the most efficacious means to reconcile Him, not only to ourselves, but to them also.

St. Epiphanius stuck not to condemn Arius for this damnable heresy amongst others, that he held it in vain to pray for the dead: as if our prayers could not avail them.

St. Ambrose prayed heartily for the good Emperor Theodosius as soon as he was dead, and made open profession that he would never give over praying for him till he had, by his prayers and tears, conveyed him safe to the holy mountain of Our Lord, whither he was called by his merits, and where there is true life everlasting. He had the same kindness for the soul of the Emperor Valentinian, the same for Gratian, the same for his brother Satyrus and others. He promised them Masses, tears, prayers, and that he would never forget them, never give over doing charitable offices for them.

"Will you honor your dead?" says St. John Chrysostom; "do not spend yourselves in unprofitable lamentations; choose rather to sing psalms, to give alms, and to lead holy lives. Do for them that which they would willingly do for themselves, were they to return again into the world, and God will accept it at your hands, as if it came from them." (Pp. 162-166.)

St. Paulinus, that charitable prelate who sold himself to redeem others, could not but have a great proportion of charity for captive souls in the other world. No; he was not only ready to become a slave himself to purchase their freedom, but he became an earnest solicitor to others in their behalf; for, in a letter to Delphinus, alluding to the story of Lazarus, he beseeches him to have at least so much compassion as to convey, now and then, a drop of water wherewith to cool the tongues of poor souls that lie burning in the Church which is all a-fire.

I am astonished when I call to mind the sad regrets of the people of Africa when they saw some of their priests dragged away to martyrdom. The author says they flocked about them in great numbers and cried out: "Alas! if you leave us so, what will become of us? Who must give us absolution for our sins? Who must bury us with the wonted ceremonies of the Church when we are dead? and who will take care to pray for our souls?" Such a general belief they had in those days, that nothing is more to be desired in this world than to leave those behind us who will do their best to help us out of our torments. (Pp. 167-8.)

* * * * *

Almighty God has often miraculously made it appear how well He is pleased to be importuned by us in the souls' behalf, and what comfort they receive by our prayers. St. John Climacus writes, [1] that while the monks were at service, praying for their good father, Mennas, the third day after his departure, they felt a marvellous sweet smell to rise out of his grave, which they took for a good omen that his sweet soul, after three days' purgation, had taken her flight into heaven. For what else could be meant by that sweet perfume but the odor of his holy and innocent conversation, or the incense of their sacrifices and prayers, or the primitial fruits of his happy soul, which was now flown up to the holy mountain of eternal glory, there enjoying the odoriferous and never-fading delights of Paradise?

[Footnote 1: In 4, gradu scalæ.]

Not unlike unto this is that story which the great St. Gregory relates of one Justus, a monk. [1] He had given him up at first for a lost creature; but, upon second thoughts, having ordered Mass to be said for him for thirty days together, the last day he appeared to his brother and assured him of the happy exchange he was now going to make of his torments for the joys of heaven.

[Footnote 1: Dial. c. 55, lib. 4.]

Pope Symmachus and his Council [1] had reason to thunder out anathemas against those sacrilegious persons who were so frontless as to turn pious legacies into profane uses, to the great prejudice of the souls for whose repose they were particularly deputed by the founders. And, certainly, it is a much fouler crime to defraud souls of their due relief than to disturb dead men's ashes and to plunder their graves. (Pp. 168-9.)

[Footnote 1: 6 Synod., Rom.]

St. Isidore delivers it as an apostolic tradition and general practice of the Catholic Church in his time, to offer up sacrifices and prayers, and to distribute alms for the dead; and this, not for any increase of their merit, but either to mitigate their pains or to shorten the time of their durance.

Venerable Bede is a sure witness for the following century; whose learned works are full of wonderful stories, which he brings in confirmation of this Catholic doctrine and practice.

St. John Damascene made an elegant oration on purpose to stir up this devotion; where, amongst other things, he says it is impossible to number up all the stories in this kind which bear witness that the souls departed are relieved by our prayers; and that, otherwise, God would not have appointed a commemoration of the dead to be daily made in the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass, nor would the Church have so religiously observed anniversaries and other days set apart for the service of the dead.

Were it but a dog, says Simon Metaphrastes, that by chance were fallen into the fire, we should have so much compassion for him as to help him out; and what shall we do for souls who are fallen into Purgatory fire? I say, souls of our parents and dearest friends; souls that are predestinate to eternal glory, and extremely precious in the sight of God? And what did not the Saints of God's Church for them in those days? Some armed themselves from head to foot in coarse hair-cloth; others tore off their flesh with chains and rude disciplines; some, again, pined themselves with rigorous fasts; others dissolved themselves into tears; some passed whole nights in contemplation; others gave liberal alms or procured great store of Masses; in fine, they did what they were able, and were not well pleased that they were able to do no more, to relieve the poor souls in Purgatory. Amongst others, Queen Melchtild [1] is reported to have purchased immortal fame for her discreet behavior at the death of the king, her husband; for whose soul she caused a world of Masses to be said, and a world of alms to be distributed, in lieu of other idle expenses and fruitless lamentations.

[Footnote 1: Luitprand, c. 4, c. 7.]

There is one in the world, to whom I bear an immortal envy, and such an envy as I never mean to repent of. It is the holy Abbot Odilo, who was the author of an invention which I would wittingly have found out, though with the loss of my very heart's blood.

Reader, take the story as it passed, thus: [1] A devout religious man, in his return from Jerusalem, meets with a holy hermit in Sicily; he assures him that he often heard the devils complain that souls were so soon discharged of their torments by the devout prayers of the monks of Cluny, who never ceased to pour out their prayers for them. This the good man carries to Odilo, then Abbot of Cluny; he praises God for His great mercy in vouchsafing to hear the innocent prayers of his monks; and presently takes occasion to command all the monasteries of his Order, to keep yearly the commemoration of All Souls, next after the feast of All Saints, a custom which, by degrees, grew into such credit, that the Catholic Church thought fit to establish it all over the Christian world; to the incredible benefit of poor souls, and singular increase of God's glory. For who can sum up the infinite number of souls who have been freed out of Purgatory by this invention? or who can express the glory which accrued to this good Abbot, who thus fortunately made himself procurator-general of the suffering Church, and furnished her people with such a considerable supply of necessary relief, to alleviate the insupportable burthen of their sufferings?

[Footnote 1: Sigeb. in _Chron_. An. 998.]

St. Bernard would triumph when he had to deal with heretics that denied this privilege of communicating our suffrages and prayers to the souls in Purgatory. And with what fervor he would apply himself to this charitable employment of relieving poor souls, may appear by the care he took for good Humbertus, though he knew him to have lived and died in his monastery so like a Saint, that he could scarce find out the fault in him which might deserve the least punishment in the other world; unless it were to have been too rigorous to himself, and too careless of his health: which in a less spiritual eye than that of St. Bernard, might have passed for a great virtue. But it is worth your hearing, that which he relates of blessed St. Malachy, who died in his very bosom. This holy Bishop, as he lay asleep, hears a sister of his, lately dead, making lamentable moan, that for thirty days together she had not eaten so much as a bit of bread. He starts up out of his sleep; and, taking it to be more than a dream, he concludes the meaning of the vision was to tell him, that just thirty days were now past since he had said Mass for her; as probably believing she was already where she had no need of his prayers.... Howsoever, this worthy prelate so plied his prayers after this, that he soon sent his sister out of Purgatory; and it pleased God to let him see, by the daily change of her habit, how his prayers had purged her by degrees, and made her fit company for the Angels and Saints in heaven. For, the first day, she was covered all over with black cypress; the next, she appeared in a mantle something whitish, but a dusky color; but the third day, she was seen all clad in white, which is the proper livery of the Saints....

This for St. Bernard. But I cannot let pass in silence one very remarkable passage, which happened to these two great servants of God. St. Malachy had passionately desired to die at Clarvallis, [1] in the hands of the devout St. Bernard; and this, on the day immediately before All Souls' Day; and it pleased God to grant him his request. It fell out, then, that while St. Bernard was saying Mass for him, in the middle of Mass it was revealed to him that St. Malachy was already glorious in heaven; whether he had gone straight out of this world, or whether that part of St. Bernard's Mass had freed him out of Purgatory, is uncertain; but St. Bernard, hereupon, changed his note; for, having begun with a Requiem, he went on with the Mass of a bishop and confessor, to the great astonishment of all the standers-by.

[Footnote 1: Clairvaux.]

St. Thomas of Aquin, that great champion of Purgatory, gave God particular thanks at his death, for not only delivering a soul out of Purgatory, at the instance of his prayers, but also permitting the same soul to be the messenger of so good news. (Pp. 169-174.)

* * * * *

And now, we are come down to the fifteenth age, where the Fathers of the Council of Florence, both Greeks and. Latins, with one consent, declare the same faith and constant practice of the Church, thus handed down to them from age to age, since Christ and His Apostles' time, as we have seen; viz., that the souls in Purgatory are not only relieved, but translated into heaven, by the prayers, sacrifices, alms, and other charitable works, which are offered up for them according to the custom of the Catholic Church. Nor did their posterity degenerate, or vary the least, from this received doctrine, until Luther's time; when the holy Council of Trent thought fit again to lay down the sound doctrine of the Church, in opposition to all our late sectaries. And I wish all Catholics were but as forward to lend their helping hands to lift souls out of Purgatory, as they are to believe they have the power to do it; and that we had not often more reason than the Roman Emperor to pronounce the day lost; since we let so many days pass over our heads, and so many fair occasions slip out of our hands, without easing, or releasing, any souls out of Purgatory, when we might do it with so much ease. (P. 175.)

ON DEVOTION TO THE HOLY SOULS.

FATHER FABER.

Although we are mercifully freed from the necessity of descending into hell to seek and promote the interests of Jesus, it is far from being so with Purgatory. If heaven and earth are full of the glory of God, so also is that most melancholy, yet most interesting land, where the prisoners of hope are detained by their Saviour's loving justice, from the Beatific Vision; and if we can advance the interests of Jesus on earth and in heaven, I may almost venture to say that we can do still more in Purgatory. And what I am endeavoring to show you in this treatise is, how you may help God by prayer, and the practices of devotion, whatever your occupation and calling may be: and all these practices apply especially to Purgatory. For although some theologians say that in spite of the Holy Souls placing no obstacle in the way, still the effect of prayer for them is not infallible; nevertheless, it is much more certain than the effect of prayer for the conversion of sinners upon earth, where it is so often frustrated by their perversity and evil dispositions. Anyhow, what I have wanted to show has been this: that each of us, without aiming beyond our grace, without austerities for which we have not courage, without supernatural gifts to which we lay no claim, may, by simple affectionateness and the practices of sound Catholic devotion, do great things, things so great that they seem incredible, for the glory of God, the interests of Jesus, and the good of souls. I should, therefore, be leaving my subject very incomplete if I did not consider at some length devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory; and I will treat, not so much of particular practices of it, which are to be found in the ordinary manuals, as of the spirit of the devotion itself.

* * * * *

By the doctrine of the Communion of Saints and of the unity of Christ's mystical body, we have most intimate relations both of duty and affection with the Church Triumphant and Suffering; and Catholic devotion furnishes us with many appointed and approved ways of discharging these duties toward them.... For the present it is enough to say that God has given us such power over the dead that they seem, as I have said before, to depend almost more on earth than on heaven; and surely that He has given us this power, and supernatural methods of exercising it, is not the least touching proof that His Blessed Majesty has contrived all things for love. Can we not conceive the joy of the Blessed in Heaven, looking down from the bosom of God and the calmness of their eternal repose upon this scene of dimness, disquietude, doubt and fear, and rejoicing in the plenitude of their charity, in their vast power with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to obtain grace and blessing day and night for the poor dwellers upon earth? It does not distract them from God, it does not interfere with the Vision, or make it waver and grow misty; it does not trouble their glory or their peace. On the contrary, it is with them as with our Guardian Angels--the affectionate ministries of their charity increase their own accidental glory. The same joy in its measure may be ours even upon earth. If we are fully possessed with this Catholic devotion for the Holy Souls, we shall never be without the grateful consciousness of the immense powers which Jesus has given us on their behalf. We are never so like Him, or so nearly imitate His tender offices, as when we are devoutly exercising these powers.... Oh! what thoughts, what feelings, what love should be ours, as we, like choirs of terrestrial angels, gaze down on the wide, silent, sinless kingdom of suffering, and then with our own venturous touch wave the sceptred hand of Jesus over its broad regions all richly dropping with the balsam of His saving Blood!

* * * * *

Oh! how solemn and subduing is the thought of that holy kingdom, that realm of pain! There is no cry, no murmur; all is silent, silent as Jesus before His enemies. We shall never know how we really love Mary till we look up to her out of those deeps, those vales of dread mysterious fire. O beautiful region of the Church of God. O lovely troop of the flock of Mary! What a scene is presented to our eyes when we gaze upon that consecrated empire of sinlessness and yet of keenest suffering! There is the beauty of those immaculate souls, and then the loveliness, yea, the worshipfulness of their patience, the majesty of their gifts, the dignity of their solemn and chaste sufferings, the eloquence of their silence; the moonlight of Mary's throne lighting up their land of pain and unspeechful expectation; the silver-winged angels voyaging through the deeps of that mysterious realm; and above all, that unseen Face of Jesus which is so well remembered that it seems to be almost seen! Oh! what a sinless purity of worship is here in this liturgy of hallowed pain! O world! O weary, clamorous, sinful world! Who would not break away if he could, like an uncaged dove, from thy perilous toils and unsafe pilgrimage, and fly with joy to the lowest place in that most pure, most safe, most holy land of suffering and of sinless love!

* * * * *

But some persons turn in anger from the thought of Purgatory, as if it were not to be endured, that after trying all our lives long to serve God, we should accomplish the tremendous feat of a good death, only to pass from the agonies of the death-bed into fire--long, keen, searching, triumphant, incomparable fire. Alas! my dear friends; your anger will not help you nor alter facts. But have you thought sufficiently about God? Have you tried to realize His holiness and purity in assiduous meditation? Is there a real divorce between you and the world, which you know is God's enemy? Do you take God's side? Have you wedded His interests? Do you long for His glory? Have you put sin alongside of our dear Saviour's Passion, and measured the one by the other? Oh! if you had, Purgatory would but seem to you the last, unexpected, and inexpressibly tender invention of an obstinate love which was mercifully determined to save you in spite of yourself! It would be a perpetual wonder to you, a joyous wonder, fresh every, morning--a wonder that would be meat and drink to your soul; that you, being what you are, what you know yourself to be, what you may conceive God knows you to be, should be saved eternally! Remember what the suffering soul said so simply, yet with such force, to Sister Francesca: "Ah! those on that side the grave little reckon how dearly they will pay on this side for the lives they live!" To be angry because you are told you will go to Purgatory! Silly, silly people! Most likely it is a great false flattery, and that you will never be good enough to go there at all. Why, positively, you do not recognize your own good fortune when you are told of it. And none but the humble go there. I remember Maria Crocifissa was told that although many of the Saints while on earth loved God more than some do even in heaven, yet that the greatest saint on earth was not so _humble_ as are the souls in Purgatory. I do not think I ever read anything in the lives of the Saints which struck me so much as that....

But we not only learn lessons for our own good, but for the good of the Holy Souls. We see that our charitable attentions toward them must be far more vigorous and persevering than they have been; for that men go to Purgatory for very little matters, and remain there an unexpectedly long time. But their most touching appeal to us lies in their helplessness; and our dear Lord, with His usual loving arrangement, has made the extent of our power to help them more than commensurate with their inability to help themselves.... St. Thomas has taught us that prayer for the dead is more readily accepted with God than prayer for the living. We can offer and apply for them all the satisfactions of our Blessed Lord. We can do vicarious penance for them. We can give to them all the satisfaction of our ordinary actions, and of our sufferings. We can make over to them by way of suffrage, the indulgences we gain, provided the Church has made them applicable to the dead. We can limit and direct upon them, or any one of them, the intention of the Adorable Sacrifice. The Church, which has no jurisdiction over them, can yet make indulgences applicable or inapplicable to them by way of suffrage; and by means of liturgy, commemoration, incense, holy water, and the like, can reach efficaciously to them, and most of all by her device of privileged altars. .... All that I have said hitherto has been, indirectly, at least, a plea for this devotion; but I must come now to a more direct recommendation of it.

* * * * *

It is not saying too much to call devotion to the Holy Souls, a kind of centre in which all Catholic devotions meet, and which satisfies more than any other single devotion our duties in that way; because it is a devotion all of love, and of disinterested love. If we cast an eye over the chief Catholic devotions, we shall see the truth of this. Take the devotion of St. Ignatius to the glory of God. This, if I may dare to use such an expression of Him, was the special and favorite devotion of Jesus. Now, Purgatory is simply a field white for the harvest of God's glory. Not a prayer can be said for the Holy Souls, but God is at once glorified, both by the faith and the charity of the mere prayer. Not an alleviation, however trifling, can befall any one of the souls, but He is forthwith glorified by the honor of His Son's Precious Blood, and the approach of the soul to bliss. Not a soul is delivered from its trial but God is immensely glorified.

* * * * *

Again, what devotion is more justly dear to Christians than the devotion to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus? It is rather a family of various and beautiful devotions, than a devotion by itself. Yet see how they are all, as it were, fulfilled, affectionately fulfilled, in devotion to the Holy Souls. The quicker the souls are liberated from Purgatory, the more is the beautiful harvest of His Blessed Passion multiplied and accelerated. An early harvest is a blessing, as well as a plentiful one; for all delay of a soul's ingress into the praise of heaven is an eternal and irremediable loss of honor and glory to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. How strangely things sound in the language of the Sanctuary! yet so it is. Can the Sacred Humanity be honored more than by the Adorable Sacrifice of the Mass? And here is our chief action upon Purgatory....

Devotion to our dearest Mother is equally comprehended in this devotion to the Holy Souls, whether we look at her as the Mother of Jesus, and so sharing the honors of His Sacred Humanity, or as Mother of mercy, and so specially honored by works of mercy, or, lastly, as, in a particular sense, the Queen of Purgatory, and so having all manner of dear interests to be promoted in the welfare and deliverance of those suffering souls.

Next to this we may rank devotion to the Holy Angels, and this also is satisfied in devotion to the Holy Souls. For it keeps filling the vacant thrones in the angelic choirs, those unsightly gaps which the fall of Lucifer and one-third of the heavenly host occasioned. It multiplies the companions of the blessed spirits. They may be supposed also to look with an especial interest on that part of the Church which lies in Purgatory, because it is already crowned with their own dear gift and ornament of final perseverance, and yet it has not entered at once into its inheritance as they did. Many of them also have a tender personal interest in Purgatory. Thousands, perhaps millions of them, are guardians to those souls, and their office is not over yet. Thousands have clients there who were especially devoted to them in life. Will St. Raphael, who was so faithful to Tobias, be less faithful to his clients there? Whole choirs are interested about others, either because they are finally to be aggregated to that choir, or because in life-time they had a special devotion to it. Marie Denise, of the Visitation, used to congratulate her angel every day on the grace he had received to stand when so many around him were falling. It was the only thing she could know for certain of his past life. Could he neglect her, if by the will of God she went to Purgatory? Again, St. Michael, as prince of Purgatory, and Our Lady's regent, in fulfilment of the dear office attributed to him by the Church in the Mass for the Dead, takes as homage to himself all charity to the Holy Souls; and if it be true, that a zealous heart is always a proof of a grateful one, that bold and magnificent spirit will recompense us one day in his own princely style, and perhaps within the limits of that his special jurisdiction.

Neither is devotion to the Saints without its interests in this devotion for the dead. It fills them with the delights of charity as it swells their numbers and beautifies their ranks and orders. Numberless patron saints are personally interested in multitudes of souls. The affectionate relation between their clients and themselves not only subsists, but a deeper tenderness has entered into it, because of the fearful suffering, and a livelier interest, because of the accomplished victory. They see in the Holy Souls their own handiwork, the fruit of their example, the answer to their prayers, the success of their patronage, the beautiful and finished crown of their affectionate intercession.

* * * * *

Another point of view from which we may look at this devotion for the dead, is as a specially complete and beautiful exercise of the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which are the supernatural fountains of our whole spiritual life. It exercises faith, because it leads men not only to dwell in the unseen world, but to work for it with as much energy and conviction as if it was before their very eyes. Unthoughtful or ill-read persons almost start sometimes at the minuteness, familiarity, and assurance with which men talk of the unseen world, as if it were the banks of the Rhine, or the olive-yards of Provence, the Campagna of Rome, or the crescent shores of Naples, some place which they have seen in their travels, and whose geographical features are ever in their memory, as vividly as if before their eyes. It all comes of faith, of prayer, of spiritual reading, of knowledge of the lives of the Saints, and of the study of theology. It would be strange and sad if it were not so. For, what to us, either in interest or importance, is the world we see, to the world we do not see? This devotion exercises our faith also in the effects of the sacrifice and sacraments, which are things we do not see, but which we daily talk of in reference to the dead as undoubted and accomplished facts. It exercises our faith in the communion of Saints to a degree which would make it seem impossible to a heretic that he ever could believe so wild and extravagant a creed. It acts with regard to indulgences as if they were the most inevitable material transactions of this world. It knows of the unseen treasure out of which they come, of the unseen keys which open the treasury, of the indefinite jurisdiction which places them infallibly at its disposal, of God's unrevealed acceptance of them, and of the invisible work they do, just as it knows of trees and clouds, of streets and churches--that is, just as certainly and undoubtingly; though it often can give others no proof of these things, nor account for them to itself.... It exhibits the same quiet faith in all those Catholic devotions which I mentioned before as centering themselves in this devotion for the dead.

* * * * *

Neither is this devotion a less heroic exercise of the theological virtue of hope, the virtue so sadly wanting in the spiritual life of these times. For, look what a mighty edifice this devotion raises; lofty, intricate, and of magnificent proportions, into which somehow or other all creation is drawn, from the little headache we suffer up to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, and which has to do even with God Himself. And upon what does all this rest, except on a simple, child- like trust in God's fidelity, which is the supernatural motive of hope? We hope for the souls we help, and unbounded are the benedictions which we hope for in their regard. We hope to find mercy ourselves, because of our mercy; and this hope quickens our merits without detracting from the merit of our charity.... For the state of the dead is no dream, nor our power to help them a dream, any more than the purity of God is a dream, or the Precious Blood a dream.

* * * * *

As to the charity of this devotion, it dares to imitate even the charity of God Himself. What is there in heaven or on earth which it does not embrace, and with so much facility, with so much gracefulness, as if there were scarcely an effort in it, or as if self was charmed away, and might not mingle to distract it? It is an exercise of the love of God, for it is loving those whom He loves, and loving them because He loves them, and to augment His glory and multiply His praise.... To ourselves also it is an exercise of charity, for it gains us friends in heaven; it earns mercy for us when we ourselves shall be in Purgatory, tranquil victims, yet, oh! in what distress! and it augments our merits in the sight of God, and so, if only we persevere, our eternal recompense hereafter. Now if this tenderness for the dead is such an exercise of these three theological virtues, and if, again, even heroic sanctity consists principally in their exercise, what store ought we not to set upon this touching and beautiful devotion?

* * * * *

Look at that vast kingdom of Purgatory, with its empress-mother, Mary! All those countless throngs of souls are the dear and faithful spouses of Jesus. Yet in what a strange abandonment of supernatural suffering has His love left them! He longs for their deliverance; He yearns for them to be transferred from that land, perpetually overclouded with pain, to the bright sunshine of their heavenly home. Yet He has tied His own hands, or nearly so. He gives them no more grace; He allows them no more time for penance; He prevents them from meriting; nay, some have thought they could not pray. How, then, stands the case with the souls in the suffering Church? Why, it is a thing to be meditated on when we have said it--they depend almost more on earth than they do on heaven, almost more on us than on Him; so He has willed it on whom all depend, and without whom there is no dependence. It is clear, then, that Jesus has His interests there. He wants His captives released. Those whom He has redeemed He now bids us redeem, us whom, if there be life at all in us, He has already Himself redeemed. Every satisfaction offered up to God for these suffering souls, every oblation of the Precious Blood to the Eternal Father, every Mass heard, every communion received, every voluntary penance undergone; the scourge, the hair- shirt, the prickly chain, every indulgence gained, every jubilee whose conditions we have fulfilled, every _De Profundis_ whispered, every little alms doled out to the poor who are poorer than ourselves, and, if they be offered for the intention of these dear prisoners, the interests of Jesus are hourly forwarded in Mary's Kingdom of Purgatory.... There is no fear of overworking the glorious secretary of that wide realm, the blessed Michael, Mary's subject. See how men work at the pumps on ship-board when they are fighting for their lives with an ugly leak. Oh! that we had the charity so to work, with the sweet instrumentality of indulgence, for the Holy Souls in Purgatory! The infinite satisfactions of Jesus are at our command, and Mary's sorrows, and the Martyr's pangs, and the Confessor's weary perseverance in well- doing! Jesus will not help Himself here, because He loves to see us helping Him, and because He thinks our love will rejoice that He still leaves us something we can do for Him. There have been Saints who have devoted their whole lives to this one work, mining in Purgatory; and, to those who reflect in faith, it does not seem, after all, so strange. It is a foolish comparison, simply because it is so much below the mark; but on all principles of reckoning, it is a much less work to have won the battle of Waterloo, or to have invented the steam-engine, than to have freed one soul from Purgatory.

WHY THE SOULS IS PURGATORY ARE CALLED "POOR" SOULS.

FATHER MULLER, C.S.S.R. [1]

[Footnote 1: Charity to the Holy Souls in Purgatory]

We have just seen that the Jews believed in the doctrine of Purgatory; we have seen that their charity for the dead was so great that the Holy Ghost could not help praising them for it. Yet for all that, we may assert in truth that the people of God under the Old Law were not so well instructed in this doctrine as we are, nor had they such powerful means to relieve the souls--in Purgatory as we have. Our faith, therefore, should be more lively, and our charity for the souls in Purgatory more ardent and generous.

A short time ago a fervent young priest of this country had the following conversation with a holy Bishop on his way to Rome. The Bishop said to him: "You make mementoes now and then, for friends of yours that are dead--do you not?" The young priest answered: "Certainly, I do so very often." The Bishop rejoined: "So did I, when I was a young priest. But one time I was grievously ill. I was given up as about to die. I received Extreme Unction and the Viaticum. It was then that my whole past life, with all its failings and all its sins, came before me with startling vividness. I saw how much I had to atone for; and I reflected on how few Masses would be said for me, and how few prayers. Ever since my recovery I have most fervently offered the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of the pious and patient souls in Purgatory; and I am always glad when I can, as my own offering, make the 'intention' of my Masses for the relief of their pains."

Indeed, dear reader, no one is more deserving of Christian charity and sympathy than the poor souls in Purgatory. They are _really_ POOR _souls_. No one is sooner forgotten than they are.

How soon their friends persuade themselves that they are in perfect peace! How little they do for their relief when their bodies are buried! There is a lavish expense for the funeral. A hundred dollars are spent where the means of the family hardly justify the half of it. Where there is more wealth, sometimes five hundred or a thousand, and even more, dollars are expended on the poor dead body. But let me ask you what is done for the _poor living soul_? Perhaps the poor soul is suffering the most frightful tortures in Purgatory, whilst the lifeless body is laid out in state, and borne pompously to the graveyard. You must not misunderstand me: it is right and just to show all due respect even to the body of your deceased friend, for that body was once the dwelling-place of his soul. But tell me candidly, what joy has the departed, and, perhaps, suffering soul, in the fine music of the choir, even should the choir be composed of the best singers in the country? What consolation does the poor suffering soul find in the superb coffin, in the splendid funeral? What pleasure does the soul derive from the costly marble monument, from all the honors that are so freely lavished on the body? All this may satisfy, or at least seem to satisfy, the living, but it is of no avail whatever to the dead.

Poor unhappy souls! how the diminution of true Catholic faith is visited upon you while you suffer, and those that loved you in life might help you, and do not, for want of knowledge or of faith!

Poor unhappy souls! your friends go to their business, to their eating and drinking, with the foolish assurance that the case cannot be hard on one they knew to be so good! Oh, how much and how long this _false charity_ of your friends makes you suffer!

The venerable Sister, Catherine Paluzzi, offered up, for a long time, and with the utmost fervor, prayers and pious works for the soul of her deceased father. At last she thought she had good reason to believe that her father was already enjoying the bliss of Paradise. But how great was her consternation and grief when Our Lord, in company with St. Catherine, her patroness, led her one day, in spirit, to Purgatory. There she beheld her father in an abyss of torments, imploring her assistance. At the sight of the pitiful state the soul of her father was in, she melted into tears; she cast herself at the feet of her Heavenly Spouse, and begged Him, through His precious Blood, to free her father from his excruciating sufferings. She also begged St. Catherine to intercede for him, and then turning to Our Lord, she said: "Charge me, O Lord, with my father's indebtedness to Thy justice. In expiation of it, I am ready to take upon myself all the afflictions Thou art pleased to bestow upon me." Our Lord graciously accepted this act of heroic charity, and released at once her father's soul from Purgatory. But how heavy were the crosses which she, from that time, had to suffer, may be more easily imagined than described. This pious sister seemed to have good reason to believe that her father's soul was in Paradise. Yet she was mistaken. Alas! how many are there who resemble her! How many are there whose hope as to the condition of their deceased friends is far more vain and false than that of this religious, because they pray much less for the souls of their departed friends than she did for her father.

* * * * *

It is related in the life of St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, that one day she saw the soul of one of her deceased sisters kneeling in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, in the church, wrapped up in a mantle of fire, and suffering great pains, in expiation of her neglecting to go to Holy Communion on one day, when she had her confessor's permission to communicate.

The Venerable Bede relates that it was revealed to Drithelm, a great servant of God, that the souls of those who spend their whole lives in the state of mortal sin, and are converted only on their death-bed, are doomed to suffer the pains of Purgatory to the day of the last judgment.

In the life and revelations of St. Gertrude we read that those who have committed many grievous sins, and who die without having done due penance, are not assisted by the ordinary suffrages of the Church until they are partly purified by Divine Justice in Purgatory.

After St. Vincent Ferrer had learned the death of his sister Frances, he at once began to offer up many fervent prayers and works of penance for the repose of her soul. He also said thirty Masses for her, at the last of which it was revealed to him that, had it not been for his prayers and good works, the soul of his sister would have suffered in Purgatory to the end of the world.

From these examples you may draw your own conclusion as to the state of your deceased friends and relatives. Rest assured that the judgments of God are very different from the judgments of men.

* * * * *

In heaven, love for God is the happiness of the elect; but in Purgatory it is the source of the most excruciating pains. It is principally for this reason that the souls in Purgatory are called "poor souls," they being, as they are, in the most dreadful state of poverty--that of the privation of the beatific vision of God.

After Anthony Corso, a Capuchin Brother, a man of great piety and perfection, had departed this life, he appeared to one of his brethren in religion, asking him to recommend him to the charitable prayers of the community, in order that he might receive relief in his pains. "For I do not know," said he, "how I can bear any longer the pain of being deprived of the sight of my God. I shall be the most unhappy of creatures as long as I must live in this state. Would to God that all men might understand what it is to be without God, in order that they might firmly resolve to suffer anything during their life on earth rather than expose themselves to the danger of being damned, and deprived forever of the sight of God." [1]

[Footnote 1: 1 Aunal. Pp. Capuc., A.D. 1548.]

* * * * *

The souls in Purgatory are _poor_ souls, because they suffer the greatest pain of the senses, which is that of _fire_. Who can be in a poorer or more pitiful condition than those who are buried in fire? Now, this is the condition of these poor souls. They are buried under waves of fire. It is from the smallest spark of this purgatorial fire that they suffer more intense pains than all the fires of this world put together could produce....

Could these poor souls leave the fire of Purgatory for the most frightful earthly fire they would, as it were, take it for a pleasure- garden; they would find a fifty years' stay in the hottest earthly fire more endurable than an hour's stay in the fire of Purgatory. Our terrestrial fire was not created by God to torment men, but rather to benefit them; but the fire of Purgatory was created by God for no other purpose than to be an instrument of His justice; and for this reason it is possessed of a burning quality so intense and penetrating that it is impossible for us to conceive even the faintest idea of it.

* * * * *

In the year 1150 it happened that, on the Vigil of St. Cecilia, a very old monk, one hundred years of age, at Marchiennes, in Flanders, fell asleep while sacred lessons were being read, and saw, in a dream, a monk all clad in armor, shining like red-hot iron in a furnace. The old man asked him who he was. He was told that he was one of the monks of the convent; that he was in Purgatory, and had yet to endure this fiery armor for ten years more, for having injured the reputation of another.

* * * * *

Another reason why these holy prisoners and debtors to the divine justice are really _poor_ is because they are not able, in the least, to assist themselves. A sick man afflicted in all his limbs, and a beggar in the most painful and most destitute of conditions, has a tongue left to ask for relief. At least they can implore Heaven; it is never deaf to their prayer. But the souls in Purgatory are so poor that they cannot even do this. Those cases in which some of them were permitted to appear to their friends and ask assistance are but exceptions. To whom is it they should have recourse? Is it, perhaps, to the mercy of God? Alas! they send forth their sighs in plaintive voices.... But the Lord does not regard their tears, nor heed their moans and cries, but answers them that His justice must be satisfied to the last farthing.

* * * * *

Oh, what cruelty! A sick man weeps on his bed and his friend consoles him; a baby cries in his cradle and his mother at once caresses him; a beggar knocks at the door for an alms and receives it; a malefactor laments in his prison, and comfort is given him; even a dog that whines at the door is taken in; but these poor, helpless souls cry day and night from the depths of the fire in Purgatory: "Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath smitten me;" and there is none to listen! Oh, what great cruelty, my brethren!

But it seems to me that I hear these poor souls exclaim: "Priest of the Lord, speak no longer of our sufferings and pitiable condition. Let your description of it be ever so touching, it will not afford us the least relief. When a man has fallen into the fire, instead of considering his pains, you try at once to draw him out or quench the fire with water. This is true charity. Now, tell Christians to do the same for us. Tell them to give us their feet, by going to hear Mass for us; to give us their eyes, by seeking an occasion to perform a good work for us; to give us their hands, by giving an alms for us, or by often making an offering for the 'intention' of Masses in our behalf; to give us their lips, by praying for us; to give us their tongue, by requesting others to be charitable to us; to give us their memory, by remembering us constantly in their devotions; to give us their body, by offering up for us to the Almighty all its labors, fatigues, and penance."...

We read in the Acts of the Apostles, that the faithful prayed unceasingly for St. Peter when he was imprisoned, and that an Angel came and broke his chains and released him. "We, too, should be good angels to the poor souls in Purgatory, and free them from their painful captivity by every means in our power."

* * * * *

In the time of St. Bernard, a monk of Clairvaux appeared after his death to his brethren in religion, to thank them for having delivered him from Purgatory. On being asked what had most contributed to free him from his torments, he led the inquirer to the church, where a priest was saying Mass. "Look!" said he; "this is the means by which my deliverance has been effected; this is the power of God's mercy; this is the saving Sacrifice which taketh away the sins of the world." Indeed, so great is the efficacy of this Sacrifice in obtaining relief for the souls in Purgatory, that the application of all the good works which have been performed from the beginning of the world, would not afford so much assistance to one of these souls as is imparted by a single Mass. To illustrate: The blessed Henry Suso made an agreement with one of his brethren in religion that, as soon as either of them died, the survivor should say two Masses every week for one year, for the repose of his soul. It came to pass that the religious with whom Henry had made this contract, died first. Henry prayed every day for his deliverance from Purgatory, but forgot to say the Masses which he had promised; whereupon the deceased religious appeared to him with a sad countenance, and sharply rebuked him for his unfaithfulness to his engagement. Henry excused himself by saying that he had often prayed for him with great fervor, and had even offered up for him many penitential works. "Oh, brother!" exclaimed the soul, "blood, blood is necessary to give me some relief and refreshment in my excruciating torments. Your penitential works, severe as they are, cannot deliver me. Nothing can do this but the blood of Jesus Christ, which is offered up in the Sacrifice of the Mass. Masses, Masses--these are what I need!"

* * * * *

Another means to relieve the souls in Purgatory is to gain indulgences for them. A very pious nun had just died in the convent in which St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi lived. Whilst her corpse was exposed in the church, the Saint looked lovingly upon it, and prayed fervently that the soul of her sister might soon enter into eternal rest. Whilst she was thus wrapt in prayer her sister appeared to her, surrounded by great splendor and radiance, in the act of ascending into heaven. The Saint, on seeing this, could not refrain from calling out to her: "Farewell, dear sister! When you meet your Heavenly Spouse, remember us who are still sighing for Him in this vale of tears!" At these words our Lord Himself appeared, and revealed to her that this sister had entered heaven so soon on account of the indulgences gained for her. [1]

[Footnote 1: Vita S. Magd. de Pazzi, L. I., chap, xxxix.]

Very many plenary indulgences can be gained for the souls in Purgatory, if you make the Stations of the Cross. The merit of this exercise, if applied to these souls, obtains great relief for them. We read in the life of Catherine Emmerich, a very pious Augustinian nun, that the souls in Purgatory often came to her during the night, and requested her to rise and make the Stations for their relief. It is also related in the life of the venerable Mary of Antigua, that a deceased sister of her convent appeared to her and said: "Why do you not make the Stations of the Way of the Cross for me?" Whilst the servant of the Lord felt surprised and astonished at these words, Jesus Christ Himself spoke to her, thus: "The exercise of the Stations is of the greatest advantage to the souls in Purgatory; so much so that this soul has been permitted by Me, to ask of you its performance in behalf of them all. Your frequent performance of this exercise to procure relief for these souls has induced them to hold intercourse with you, and you shall have them for so many intercessors and protectors before My justice. Tell your sisters to rejoice at these treasures, and the splendid capital which they have in them, that they may grow rich upon it."

* * * * *

After St. Ludgarde had offered up many fervent prayers for the repose of the soul of her deceased friend Simeon, Abbot of the monastery of Toniac, Our Lord appeared to her, saying: "Be consoled, My daughter; on account of thy prayers, I will soon release this soul from Purgatory." "O Jesus, Lord and Master of my heart!" she rejoined, "I cannot feel consoled so long as I know that the soul of my friend is suffering so much in the Purgatorial fire. Oh! I cannot help shedding most bitter tears until Thou hast released this soul from its sufferings." Touched and overcome by this fervent prayer, Our Lord released the soul of Simeon, who appeared to Ludgarde all radiant with heavenly glory, and thanked her for the many fervent prayers which she had offered up for his delivery. He also told the Saint that, had it not been for her fervent prayers, he should have been obliged to stay in Purgatory for eleven years....

Peter, the venerable Abbot of Cluny, relates an event somewhat similar. There was a monk at Cluny, named Bernard Savinellus. One night as he was returning to the dormitory, he met Stephen, commonly called Blancus, Abbot of St. Giles, who had departed this life a few days before. At first, not knowing him, he was passing on, till he spoke, and asked him whither he was hastening. Bernard, astonished and angry that a monk should speak, contrary to the rules, in the nocturnal hours, and in a place where it was not permitted, made signs to him to hold his peace; but as the dead abbot replied, and urged him to speak, the other, raising his head, asked in amazement who he might be. He was answered, "I am Stephen, the Abbot of St. Giles, who have formerly committed many faults in the Abbey, for which I now suffer pains; and I beseech you to implore the lord Abbot, and other brethren, to pray for me, that by the ineffable mercy of God, I may be delivered." Bernard replied that he would do so, but added that he thought no one would believe his report; to which the dead man answered, "In order, then, that no one may doubt, you may assure them that within eight days you will die;" he then disappeared. The monk, returning to the church, spent the remainder of the night in prayer and meditation. When it was day, he related his vision to St. Hugo, who was then abbot. As is natural, some believed his account, and others thought it was some delusion. The next day the monk fell sick, and continued growing worse, constantly affirming the truth of what he had related, till his death, which occurred within the time specified.

* * * * *

Besides prayer and other acts of devotion we can offer up for the poor souls, we may especially reckon _alms-deeds_; for since this is a work of mercy, it is more especially apt to obtain mercy for the poor souls. But not the rich alone can give alms, but the poor also, since it does not so much depend on the greatness of the gift. Of the poor widow who gave but one penny, Our Lord said; that she had given more than all the rich who had offered gold and silver, because these offered only of their abundance, whilst the poor widow gave what she saved from her daily sustenance....

The venerable servant of God, Father Clement Hoffbauer, of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, who died in Vienna in the year 1820, and whose cause of beatification has already been introduced, once assisted a man of distinction in death. A short time afterwards the same man appeared to his wife in a dream, in a very pitiable condition, his clothes in rags and quite haggard, and shivering with cold. He begged her to have pity on him, because he could scarcely endure the extreme hunger and cold which he suffered. His wife went without delay to Father Hoffbauer, related her dream, and asked his advice on this point. The confessor, enlightened by God, immediately understood what this dream meant, and what kind of assistance was especially needed and asked for by this poor soul. He accordingly advised her to clothe a poor beggar. The woman followed the advice, and soon after her husband again appeared to her, dressed in a white garment, and his countenance beaming with joy, thanking her for the help which she had given to him.

* * * * *

We can assist the poor souls not only by prayers, devotions, exterior works of penance, alms-deeds, and other works of charity, but we can also aid them by _interior mortifications_. Everything which appears to us difficult, and which costs us a sacrifice, the pains of sickness, and all the sufferings and troubles of this life, may be offered up for these poor souls...

The only son of a rich widow of Bologna had been murdered by a stranger. The culprit fell into her hands, but the pious widow was far from taking revenge by delivering him up to the hands of justice. She thought of the infinite love of our Saviour when He died for us upon the cross, and how He prayed for His executioners when dying. She, therefore, thought that she could in no way honor the memory of her dear son better, and that she could do nothing more efficient for the repose of his soul, than by granting pardon to the culprit, by protecting him, and by even adopting him as her son and heir to all her riches. This heroic self-denial, and the sacrifice which she thereby offered to Our Lord in memory of His bitter Passion, was so pleasing to God, that, in reward thereof, He remitted to her son all the pains of Purgatory. The happy son then appeared to his mother in a glorified state, at the very moment when he was entering heaven. He thanked her for having thus delivered him from the sufferings of Purgatory much sooner than any other good work could have effected it.

* * * * *

Those who give themselves up to immoderate grief at the loss of beloved friends, should bear this in mind also: instead of injuring their health by a grief which is of no avail to the dead, they should endeavor to deliver their souls from Purgatory by Masses, prayers, and good works; nay, the very thought that they thus render to the souls of their beloved friends the greatest possible act of charity, will console them and mitigate their sorrow. For this reason St. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians not to be afflicted on account of the departed, after the manner of heathens who have no hope.

* * * * *

Thomas Cantipratensis relates of a certain mother, that she wept day and night over the death of her darling son, so much so that she forgot to assist his soul in Purgatory. To convince her of her folly, God one day permitted her to be rapt in spirit, and see a long procession of youths hastening towards a city of indescribable beauty. Having looked for her son in vain for some time, she at last discovered him walking slowly along at the end of the procession. At once her son turned towards her, and said: "Ah, mother, cease your useless tears! and if you truly love me, offer up for my soul Masses, prayers, alms-deeds, and such like good works." Then he disappeared, and his mother, instead of any longer wasting her strength by foolish grief, began henceforth to give her son proofs of a true Christian and motherly love, by complying with his request. (L. II. Appar., 5, 17.)

Among the appointments to the Italian Episcopate made by our Holy Father Pope Pius IX. was that of an humble and holy monk, hidden away in a poor monastery of Tuscany. When he received his Bulls he was thrown into the greatest affliction. He had gone into religion to be done with the world outside; and here he was to be thrown again into its whirlpool. He made a novena to Our Blessed Lady, invoking her help to rid him of the burden and the danger. Meantime, he wrote a letter to the See of Rome setting forth reasons why he ought not to be asked to accept, and also sending back the Bulls, with a positive _noluit_, but Rome would not excuse him. Then he went in person to see the Pope, and to implore leave to decline, which he did, even with tears. Among other reasons, the good monk said that of late he had a most miserable memory. "That is unfortunate," said the Holy Father, "for after your death, if you continue so, no one will ever refer to you as Monsignor -----, _of happy memory_! but that will be no great loss to you." Then, seeing the intense grief of the nominated Bishop, the Holy Father changed his tone and said: "At one time of my life I, also, was threatened with the loss of my memory. But I found a remedy, used it, and it has not failed me. _For the special intention of preserving this faculty of memory I have said every day a 'De Profundis' for the souls in Purgatory_. I give you this receipt for your use; and now, do not resist the will of him who gives you and the people of your diocese his blessing."

It is a new revelation that our Holy Father Pius IX. was ever threatened with loss of memory. Of all his faculties of mind there was not one that excited such general astonishment as his wonderful memory.

* * * * *

The following incident took place at Dole, in France: One day, in the year 1629, long after her death, Leonarda Colin, niece to Hugueta Roy, appeared to her, and spoke as follows: "I am saved by the mercy of God. It is now seventeen years since I was struck down by a sudden death. My poor soul was in mortal sin, but, thanks to Mary, whose devoted servant I had ever striven to be, I obtained grace, in the last extremity, to make an act of perfect contrition, and thus I was rescued from hell- fire, but by no means from Purgatory. My sufferings in those purifying flames are beyond description. At last Almighty God has permitted my guardian angel to conduct me to you in order that you may make three pilgrimages to three Churches of our Blessed Lady in Burgundy. Upon the fulfillment of said condition, my deliverance from Purgatory is promised." Hugueta did as she was requested; whereupon the same soul appeared in a glorified state, thanking her benefactress, and promising to pray for her, and admonishing her always to remember the four last things.

The Greek Emperor Theophilus was, after his death, condemned to the pains of Purgatory, because he had been unable to perform the penances which, towards the end of his life, he had wished to perform. His wife, the pious Empress Theodora, was not satisfied with pouring forth fervent prayers and sighs for the repose of his soul, but she also had prayers and Masses said in all the convents of the city of Constantinople. Besides this, she besought the Patriarch St. Methodius, that for this end he would order prayers to be said by both the clergy and the people of the city. Divine mercy could not resist so many fervent prayers. On a certain day, when public prayers were again offered up in the church of St. Sophia, an Angel appeared to St. Methodius, and said to him: "Thy prayers, O Bishop, have been heard, and Theophilus has obtained pardon." Theodora, the Empress, had, at the same time, a vision, in which our Lord Himself announced to her that her husband had been delivered from Purgatory. "For your sake," He said, "and on account of the prayers of the priests, I pardon your husband."

* * * * *

In the life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque it is related that the soul of one of her departed sisters appeared to her, and said: "There you are, lying comfortably in your bed; but think of the bed on which I am lying, and suffering the most excruciating pains." "I saw this bed," says the Saint, "and I still tremble in all my limbs at the mere thought of it. The upper and lower part of it was full of red-hot sharp iron points, penetrating into the flesh. She told me that she had to endure this pain for her carelessness in the observance of her rules. 'My heart is lacerated,' she added, 'and this is the hardest of my pains. I suffer it for those fault-finding and murmuring thoughts which I entertained in my heart against my superiors. My tongue is eaten up by moths, and tormented, on account of uncharitable words, and for having unnecessarily spoken in the time of silence. Would to God that all souls consecrated to the service of the Lord could see me in these frightful pains! Would to God I could show them what punishments are inflicted upon those who live negligently in their vocation! They would indeed change their manner of living, observing most punctually the smallest point of their rules, and guarding against those faults for which I am now so much tormented.'"

APPEAL TO ALL CLASSES FOR THE SOULS IN PURGATORY.

BY A PAULIST FATHER.

"My daughter is just now dead; but come, lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live."--St. Matt. ix. 18.

Such was the entreaty made by the ruler to our Lord in the Gospel, and such are the words that the Lord says to us during the month of November, in behalf of the poor souls in Purgatory. These souls have been saved by the Precious Blood, they have been judged by Jesus Christ with a favorable judgment, they are His spouses, His sons and daughters--His children. He cries to us: "My children are even now dead; but come, lay your hands upon them, and they shall live." What hand is that which our Lord wants us to lay upon His dead children? Brethren, it is the hand of prayer. Now, it seems to me that there are three classes of persons who ought to be in an especial manner the friends of God's dead children; three classes who ought always to be extending a helping hand to the souls in Purgatory. First, the poor, because the holy souls are poor like yourselves. They have no work-- that is to say, the day for them is past in which they could work and gain indulgences and merit, the money with which the debt of temporal punishment is paid; for them the "night has come when no man can work." They are willing to work, they are willing to pay for themselves, but they cannot; they are out of work, they are poor, they cannot help themselves. They are suffering, as the poor suffer in this world from the heats of summer and the frosts of winter. They have no food; they are hungry and thirsty; they are longing for the sweets of heaven. They are in exile; they have no home; they know there is abundance of food and raiment around them which they cannot themselves buy. It seems to them that the winter will never pass, that the spring will never come; in a word they _are poor_. They are poor as many of you are poor. They are in worse need than the most destitute among you. Oh! then, ye that are poor, help the holy souls by your prayers. Secondly, the rich ought to be the special friends of those who are in Purgatory, and among the rich we wish to include those who are what people call "comfortably off." God has given you charge of the poor; you can help them by your alms in this world, so you can in the next. You can have Masses said for them; you can say lots of prayers for them, because you have plenty of time on your hands. Again remember, many of those who were your equals in this world, who, like yourselves, had a good supply of this world's goods, have gone to Purgatory because those riches were a snare to them. Riches, my dear friends, have sent many a soul to the place of purification. Oh! then, those of you who are well off, have pity upon the poor souls in Purgatory. Offer up a good share of your wealth to have Masses said for them. Do some act of charity, and offer the merit of it for some soul who was ensnared by riches, and who is now paying the penalty in suffering; and spend some considerable portion of your spare time in praying for the souls of the faithful departed.

And lastly, sinners and those who have been converted from a very sinful life ought to be the friends of God's dead children. Why? Because, although the souls in Purgatory cannot pray for themselves, they can pray for others, and these prayers are most acceptable to God. Because, too, they are full of gratitude, and they will not forget those who helped them when they shall come before the throne of God. Because sinners, having saddened the Sacred Heart of Jesus by their sins, cannot make a better reparation to it than to hasten the time when He shall embrace these souls whom He loves so dearly, and has wished for so long. Because sinners have almost always been the means of the sins of others. They have, by their bad example, sent others to Purgatory. Ah! then, if they have helped them in, they should help them out.

You, then, that are poor, you that are rich, you that have been great sinners, listen to the voice of Jesus; listen to the plaint of Mary during this month of November; "My children are now dead; come lay thy prayers up for them, and they shall live." Hear Mass for the poor souls; say your beads for them; supplicate Jesus and Mary and Joseph in their behalf. Fly to St. Catherine of Genoa and beg her to help them, and many and many a time during the month say with great fervor: "May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace."--_Five-Minute Sermons for Low Masses_.

THE SOULS IN PURGATORY. [1]

[Footnote 1: From the "Original, Short and Practical Sermons for every Feast of the Ecclesiastical Year."]

REV. F. H. WENINGER, S.J., D.D.

On the Feast of All Souls, and whenever we are reminded of Purgatory, we cannot help thinking of the dreadful pains which the souls in Purgatory have to suffer, in order to be purified from every stain of sin; of the excruciating torments they have to undergo for their faults and imperfections, and how thoroughly they have to atone for the least offences committed against the infinite holiness and justice of God. It is but just, therefore, that we should condole with them, and do all that we can to deliver them from the flames of Purgatory, or, at least, to soothe their pains.... The fire of Purgatory, as the doctors of the Church declare, is as intense as that of the abode of hell; with this difference, that it has an end. Yea! it may be that to-day a soul in Purgatory is undergoing more agony, more excruciating suffering than a damned soul, which is tormented in hell for a few mortal sins; while the poor soul in Purgatory must satisfy for millions of venial sins.

All the pains which afflict the sick upon earth, added to all that the martyrs have ever suffered, cannot be compared with those in Purgatory, so great is the punishment of those poor souls.

We read, how once a sick person who was very impatient in his sufferings, exclaimed; "O God, take me from this world!" Thereupon the Angel Guardian appeared to him, and told him to remember that, by patiently bearing his afflictions upon his sick-bed, he could satisfy for his sins, and shorten his Purgatory. But the sick man replied that he chose rather to satisfy for his sins in Purgatory. The poor sufferer died; and behold, his Guardian Angel appeared to him again, and asked him if he did not repent of the choice he had made of satisfying for his sins in Purgatory, by tortures, rather than upon earth by afflictions. Thereupon the poor soul asked the angel: "How many years am I now here in these terrible flames?" The Angel replied: "How many years? Thy body upon earth is not yet buried; nay, it is not yet cold and still thou believest already thou art here for many years!" Oh, how that soul lamented upon hearing this. Great indeed was its grief for not having chosen patiently to undergo upon earth the sufferings of sickness, and thereby shorten its Purgatory.

* * * * *

Upon earth, persons who anxiously seek another abode or another state of life, often know not whether, perhaps, they may not fall into a more wretched condition. How many have forsaken the shores of Europe, with the bright hope of a better future awaiting them in America? All has been disappointment! They have repented a thousand times of having deserted their native country. Now does this disappointment await the souls in Purgatory upon their deliverance? Ah! by no means. They _know_ too well that when they are released heaven will be their home. Once there, no more pains, no more fire for them; but the enjoyment of an _everlasting bliss_, which no eye hath seen nor ear heard; nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. Such will be their future happy state. Oh! how great is their desire to be there already. Another circumstance which especially intensifies hope in the breast of man, is _intercourse_--union with those who are near and dear to him.

How many, indeed, have bid a last farewell to Europe, where they would have prospered; but oh, there are awaiting them in another land their beloved ones--those who are so dear, and in whose midst they long to be! Oh, what a great source of desire is not this, for the poor souls in Purgatory to go to heaven! In heaven they shall find again those whom they have loved and cherished upon earth, but who have already preceded them on their way to the heavenly mansion.... There is still another feature, another circumstance which presents itself in the condition of the poor souls in Purgatory: I mean the irresistible force or tendency with which they are drawn towards _God_; their intense longing after Him, their last aim and end.... Oh, with what intense anxiety and longing is not a poor soul in Purgatory consumed, to behold the splendor of its Lord and Creator! But, also! with what marks of _gratitude_ does not every soul whom we have assisted to enter heaven pray for us upon its entrance!

Therefore, let us hasten to the relief of the poor suffering souls in Purgatory. Let us help them to the best of our power, so that they may supplicate for us before the throne of the Most High; that they may remember us when we, too, shall one day be afflicted in that prison house of suffering, and may procure for us a speedy release and an early enjoyment of a blissful eternity.

* * * * *

When it will be your turn one day to dwell in those flames, and be separated from God, how happy will you not be, if others alleviate and shorten your pains! Do you desire this assistance for your own soul? Then begin in this life, while you have time, to render aid to the poor souls in Purgatory.... He who does not assist others, unto him shall no mercy be shown; for this is what even-handed justice requires. Hence, let us not be deaf to the pitiful cries of the departed ones.... What afflicts those poor, helpless souls still more, is the circumstance that, despite their patience in _suffering_, they can earn nothing for heaven. With us, however, such is not the case. We, by our patience under affliction, may merit much, very much indeed, for Paradise.... I well remember a certain sick person who was sorely pressed with great sufferings. Wishing to console him in his distress, I said: "Friend, such severe pains will not last long. You will either recover from your illness and become well and strong again, or God will soon call you to himself." Thereupon the sick man, turning his eyes upon a crucifix which had been placed for him at the foot of his bed, replied: "Father, I desire no alleviation in my suffering, no relief in my pains. I cheerfully endure all as long as it is God's good pleasure, but I hope that I now undergo my Purgatory." Then, stretching forth his hands towards his crucifix he thus addressed it, filled with the most lively hope in God's mercy: "Is it not so, dear Jesus? Thou wilt only take me from my bed of pain to receive me straightway into heaven!"

* * * * *

We find in the lives of all the saints a most ardent zeal in the cause of these poor afflicted ones. For their relief they offered to God not only prayers, but also Masses, penances, the most severe sicknesses, and the most painful trials, and all this as a recognition and a practical display of the belief which they cherished--that they who have slept in Christ are finally to repose with him in glory.... Because all that we perform for the help and delivery of the poor souls in Purgatory, are works of Christian faith and piety. Such are prayer, the august sacrifice of the Mass, the reception of the holy sacraments, alms-deeds, and acts of penance and self-denial....

Remember, dear Christians, that we, too, shall be poor, helpless, and suffering souls in Purgatory, and what shall we carry with us of all our earthly goods and treasures? Not a single farthing.

* * * * *

We read, in the life of St. Gertrude, that God once allowed her to behold Purgatory. And, lo! she saw a soul that was about issuing from Purgatory, and Christ, who, followed by a band of holy virgins, was approaching, and stretching forth his hands towards it. Thereupon the soul, which was almost out of Purgatory, drew back, and of its own accord sank again into the fire. "What dost thou?" said St. Gertrude to the soul. "Dost thou not see that Christ wishes to release thee from thy terrible abode?" To this the soul replied: "O Gertrude, thou beholdest me not as I am. I am not yet immaculate. There is yet another stain upon me. I will not hasten thus to the arms of Jesus."

A POPULAR VIEW OF PURGATORY.

REV. J. J. MORIARTY, LL.D.

Purgatory is a state of suffering for such souls as have left this life in the friendship of God, but who are not sufficiently purified to enter the kingdom of heaven--having to undergo some temporal punishment for their lighter sins and imperfections, or for their grievous sins, the eternal guilt of which has been remitted. In other words, we believe that the souls of all who departed this life--not wicked enough to be condemned to hell, nor yet pure enough to enjoy the Beatific Vision of God--are sent to a place of purgation, where, in the crucible of suffering, the lighter stains of their souls are thoroughly removed, and they themselves are gradually prepared to enter the Holy of Holies --where nothing defiled is permitted to approach.

* * * * *

----There are many venial faults which the majority of persons commit, and for which they have little or no sorrow--sins which do not deprive the soul of God's friendship, and yet are displeasing to His infinite holiness. For all these we must suffer either in this life or the next. Divine justice weighs everything in a strict balance, and there is no sin that we commit but for which we shall have to make due reparation. Faults which we deem of little or no account the Almighty will not pass unnoticed or unpunished. Our Blessed Saviour warns us that even for "every idle word that man shall say he shall render an account in the day of judgment."

We know full well that no man will be sent to hell merely for an "idle word," or for any venial fault he may commit; consequently there must be a place where such sins are punished. If they be not satisfied for here upon earth by suffering, affliction, or voluntary penance, there must be a place in the other life where proper satisfaction is to be made. That place cannot be either heaven or hell. It cannot be heaven, for no sufferings, no pain, no torment is to be found there, where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, where death shall be no more, nor mourning nor weeping." It cannot be hell, where only the souls of those who have died enemies of God are condemned to eternal misery, for "out of hell there is no redemption."

There must be, then, a Middle Place where lighter faults are cleansed from the soul, and proper satisfaction is rendered for the temporal punishment that still remains due. The punishment of every one will vary according to his desert.

* * * * *

Our Divine Lord warns us to make necessary reparation whilst we have the time and opportunity.

"Make an agreement with thy adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him; lest, perhaps, the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou pay the last farthing." (St. Matthew, v., 25, 26.)

This expresses the doctrine of Purgatory most admirably. The Scriptures always describe our life as a pilgrimage. We are only on our way. We have to meet the claims of Divine justice here before being called to the tribunal of the everlasting Judge; otherwise, even should we die in His friendship and yet have left these claims not entirely satisfied, we shall be cast into the prison of Purgatory; and "Amen, I say unto thee that thou shalt not go out from thence until thou pay the last farthing."

* * * * *

Our Saviour declares (St. Matthew, xii. 32,) that "whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this life or in the world to come;" which shows, as St. Augustine says in the twenty-first book of his work, "The City of God," that there are some sins (venial of course) which shall be forgiven in the next world, and that, consequently, there is a middle state, or place of purgation in the other life, since no one can enter heaven having any stain of sin, and surely no one can obtain forgiveness in hell.

The testimony of St. Paul is very clear on this point of doctrine: "For no man can lay another foundation but that which is laid; which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build on that foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he had built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; _but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire_."

* * * * *

In the First Epistle of St. Peter (Chap. iii. 18, 19), we learn that Christ "being put to death, indeed, in the flesh, but brought to life by the spirit, in which also He came and preached to those spirits who were in prison."

Our Blessed Saviour, immediately after death, descended into that part of hell called Limbo, and, as St. Peter informs us, "preached to the spirits who were in prison." This most certainly shows the existence of a middle state. The spirits to whom our Lord preached were certainly not in the hell of the damned, where His preaching could not possibly bear any fruit; they were not already in heaven, where no preaching is necessary, since there they see God face to face. Therefore they must have been in some middle state--call it by whatever name you please-- where they were anxiously awaiting their deliverance at the hands of their Lord and Redeemer.

Belief in Purgatory is more ancient than Christianity itself. It was the belief among the Jews of old, and of this we have clear proof in the Second Book of Machabees, xii., 43. After a great victory gained by that valiant chieftain, Judas Machabeus, about two hundred years before the coming of Christ, "Judas making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and justly concerning the resurrection.... It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins."

It is customary, even in our days, in Jewish synagogues, to erect tablets reminding those present of the lately deceased, in order that they may remember them in their prayers. Surely, if there did not exist a place of purgation, no prayers nor sacrifices would be of any avail to the departed. We find the custom of praying, of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for their spiritual benefit, more especially on their anniversaries, an universal practice among the primitive Christians of the Eastern and Western Churches, of the Greek, Latin, and Oriental Rites.

Even if we did not find strong warrant, as we do, in the Scriptures, the authority of Apostolic Tradition would be amply sufficient for us; for, remember, we Catholics hold the traditions, handed down from the Apostles, to be of as much weight as their own writings.

... Hence it is that we have recourse to sacred tradition as well as to Scripture for the proof of our teaching. With reference, then, to the doctrine of "Purgatory," we are guided by the belief that prevailed among the primitive Christians.

That the custom of praying for the dead was sanctioned by the Apostles themselves, we have the declaration of St. John Chrysostom: "It was not in vain instituted by the Apostles that in the celebration of the tremendous mysteries a remembrance should be made of the departed. They knew that much profit and advantage would be thereby derived."

Tertullian--the most ancient of the Latin Fathers, who flourished in the age immediately following that of the Apostles--speaks of the duty of a widow with regard to her deceased husband: "Wherefore also does she pray for his soul, and begs for him, in the interim, refreshment, and in the first resurrection, companionship, and makes offerings for him on the anniversary day of his falling asleep in the Lord. For unless she has done these things, she has truly repudiated him so far as is in her power." All this supposes a Purgatory.

"The measure of the pain," says St. Gregory Nyssa, "is the quantity of evil to be found in each one.... Being either purified during the present life by means of prayer and the pursuit of wisdom, or, after departure from this life, by means of the furnace of the fire of purgatory."

* * * * *

Not only deeply instructive, but also eminently consoling is the doctrine of Purgatory. We need not "mourn as those who have no hope," for those nearest and dearest who have gone hence and departed this life in the friendship of God.

How beautifully our Holy Mother the Church bridges over the terrible chasm of the grave! How faithfully and tenderly she comes to our aid in the saddest of our griefs and sorrows! She leaves us not to mourn uncomforted, unsustained. She chides us not for shedding tears over our dear lost ones--a beloved parent, a darling child, a loving brother, affectionate sister, or deeply-cherished friend or spouse. She bids us let our tears flow, for our Saviour wept at the grave of Lazarus.

She whispers words of comfort--not unmeaning words, but words of divine hope and strength--to our breaking hearts. She pours the oil of heavenly consolation into our deepest wounds. She bids us cast off all unseemly grief, assuring us that not even death itself can sever the bond that unites us; that we can be of service to those dear departed ones whom we loved better than life itself; that we can aid them by our prayers and good works, and especially by, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thus may we shorten their time of banishment, assuage their pains, and continue to storm Heaven itself with our piteous appeals until the Lord deign to look down in mercy, open their prison doors, and admit them to the full light of His holy presence, and to the everlasting embrace of their Redeemer and their God.

EXTRACTS FROM "CATHOLIC BELIEF."

VERY REV. FAÁ DI BRUNO. [1]

[Footnote 1: Catholic Belief, or, A Short and Simple Exposition of Catholic Doctrine, by Very Rev. Joseph Faá Di Bruno. D. D., Rector- General of the Pious Society of Missions of the Church of San Salvatore in Onde, Ponte Sisto, Rome, and St. Peter's Italian Church in London. American Edition, edited by Father Lambert, author of Notes on Ingersoll, &c.]

As works of penance have no value in themselves except through the merits of Jesus Christ, so the pains of Purgatory have no power in themselves to purify the soul from sin, but only in virtue of Christ's Redemption, or, to speak more exactly, the souls in Purgatory are able to discharge the debt of temporal punishment demanded by God's justice, and to have their venial sins remitted only through the merits of Jesus Christ, "yet so as by fire."

The Catholic belief in Purgatory rests on the authority of the Church and her apostolic traditions recorded in ancient Liturgies, and in the writings of the ancient Fathers: Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Origen, Eusebius of Cæsarea, Arnobius, St. Basil, St. Ephrem of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine. It rests also on the Fourth Council of Carthage, and on many other authorities of antiquity.

That this tradition is derived from the Apostles, St. John Chrysostom plainly testified in a passage quoted at the end of this chapter, in which he speaks of suffrages or help for the departed.

St. Augustine tells us that Arius was the first who dared to teach that it was of no use to offer up prayers and sacrifices for the dead; and this doctrine of Arius he reckoned among heresies. (Book of Heresies, Heresy 53d.)

There are also passages in Holy Scripture from which the Fathers have confirmed the Catholic belief on this point.

St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chap. iii. 11-15, writes: "For other foundations no one can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus. Now, if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire."

The ancient Fathers, Origen in the third century, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome in the fourth, and St. Augustine in the fifth, have interpreted this text of St. Paul as relating to venial sins committed by Christians which St. Paul compares to "wood, hay, stubble," and thus with this text they confirm the Catholic belief in Purgatory, well known and believed in their time, as it is by Catholics in the present time. In St. Matthew (chap. v. 25, 26) we read, "Be at agreement with thy adversary betimes, whilst thou art in the way with him; lest, perhaps, the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen, I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing."

On this passage, St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, a Father of the third century, says: "It is one thing to be cast into prison, and not go out from thence till the last farthing be paid, and another to receive at once the reward of faith and virtue: one thing in punishment of sin to be purified by long-suffering and purged by long fire, and another to have expiated all sins of suffering (in this life); one in fire, at the day of Judgment to wait the sentence of the Lord, another to receive an immediate crown from Him." (Epist. iii.)

Our Saviour said: "He that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him in this world, nor in the world to come." (St. Matt. xii. 32.)

From this text St. Augustine argues, that "It would not have been said with truth that their sin shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come, unless some sins were remitted in the next world." (_De Civitate Dei_, Book xxi. chap. 24.)

On the other hand, we read in several places in Holy Scripture that God will render to every one (that is, will reward or punish) according as each deserves. See, for example, in Matthew xvi. 27. But as we cannot think that God will punish everlastingly a person who dies burdened with the guilt of venial sin only, it may be an "_idle word_," it is reasonable to infer that the punishment rendered to that person in the next world will be only temporary.

The Catholic belief in Purgatory does not clash with the following declarations of Holy Scripture, which every Catholic firmly believes, namely, that it is Jesus who cleanseth us from all sin, that Jesus bore "the iniquity of us all," that "by His bruises we are healed," (Isaias iii., 5); for it is through the blood of Jesus and His copious Redemption that those pains of Purgatory have power to cleanse the souls therein detained.

Again, the Catholic belief in Purgatory is not in opposition to those texts of Scripture in which it is said that a man when he is justified is "translated from death to life;" that he is no longer judged: that there is no condemnation in him. For these passages do not refer to souls taken to Heaven when natural death occurs, but to persons in this world, who from the death of sin pass to the life of grace. Nor does it follow that dying in that state of grace, that is, in a state of spiritual life, they must go at once to Heaven. A soul may be justified, entirely exempt from eternal _condemnation_, and yet have something to suffer for a time; thus, also, in this world, many are justified, and yet are not exempt from suffering.

Again, it is not fair to bring forward against the Catholic doctrine on Purgatory that text of the Apocalypse, Rev. xix. 13: "Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: for their works follow them," for this text applies only to those souls who die perfectly in the Lord, that is, entirely free from every kind of sin, and from the _stain_, the _guilt_, and the _debt of temporal punishment_ of every sin. Catholics believe that these souls have no pain to suffer in Purgatory, as is the case with the martyrs and saints who die in a perfect state of grace.

It is usual to bring forward against the Catholic belief in Purgatory that text which says: "If the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be." (Eccles. xi. 3.)

This text confirms and illustrates the truth that, when death comes, the _final doom_ of every one is fixed, and that there is no possibility of changing it; so that one dying in a state of mortal sin will always remain in a state of mortal sin, and consequently be rejected forever; and one dying in a state of grace and friendship with God, will forever remain accepted by God and in a state of grace, and in friendship with Him.

But this text proves nothing against the existence of Purgatory; for a soul, although in a state of grace, and destined to heaven, may still have to suffer for a time before being perfectly fit to enter upon the eternal bliss, to enjoy the vision of God.

Some might be disposed, notwithstanding, to regard this text as opposed to the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory by saying that the two places alluded to in the texts are heaven and hell. But this interpretation Catholics readily admit, for at death either heaven or hell is the final place to which all men are allotted, Purgatory being only a passage to heaven. This text surely does not tell against those just ones under the Old Law who died in a state of grace and salvation, and who, though sure of heaven, had yet to wait in a middle state until after the Ascension of Jesus Christ; neither, therefore, does it tell against Purgatory.

Christ's Redemption is abundant, "_plentiful_" as Holy Scripture, says (Ps. cxxix. 7), and Catholics do not believe that those Christians who die guilty only of _venial the practice of the Catholic Church to offer prayers and other pious works in suffrage for the dead, as is amply testified by the Latin Fathers; for instance, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Gregory; and amongst the Greek Fathers, by St. Ephrem of Edessa, St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom. St. Chrysostom says: "It was not without good reason ordained by the Apostles that mention should be made of the dead in the tremendous mysteries, because they knew well that, these would receive great benefit from it" (on the First Epistle to Philippians, Homily iii.) By the expression "tremendous mysteries," is meant the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

St. Augustine says: "It is not to be doubted that the dead are aided by the prayers of Holy Church and by the salutary sacrifice, and by the alms which are offered for their spirits, that the Lord may deal with them more mercifully than their sins have deserved. For this, which has been handed down by the Fathers, the universal Church observes." (_Enchirid_, Vol. v., Ser. 172.)

The same pious custom is proved also from the ancient Liturgies of the Greek and other Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Schismatic, in which the Priest is directed to pray for the repose of the dead during the celebration of the Holy Mysteries.

PURGATORY AND THE FEAST OF ALL SOULS.

ALBAN BUTLER.

By Purgatory no more is meant by Catholics than a middle state of souls; namely of purgation from sin by temporary chastisements, or a punishment of some sin inflicted after death, which is not eternal. As to the place, manner or kind of these sufferings nothing has been defined by the Church; and all who with Dr. Deacon except against this doctrine, on account of the circumstance of a material fire, quarrel about a mere scholastic question, in which a person is at liberty to choose either side.... Certainly some sins are venial, which deserve not eternal death. Yet if not effaced by condign punishment in this world must be punished in the next. The Scriptures frequently mention those venial sins, from which ordinarily the just are not exempt, who certainly would not be just if these lesser sins into which men easily fall by surprise, destroyed grace in them, or if they fell from charity. Yet the smallest sin excludes a soul from heaven so long as it is not blotted out.... Who is there who keeps, so constant a guard upon his heart and whole conduct as to avoid all sensible self-deceptions? Who is there upon whose heart no inordinate attachments steal; into whose actions no sloth, remissness, or other irregularity ever insinuates itself?... The Blessed Virgin was preserved by an extraordinary grace from the least sin in the whole tenor of her life and actions; but, without such a singular privilege, even the saints are obliged to say that they sin daily.... The Church of Christ is composed of three different parts: the Triumphant in Heaven, the Militant on earth, and the Patient or Suffering in Purgatory. Our charity embraces all the members of Christ.... The Communion of Saints which we profess in our Creed, implies a communication of certain good works and offices, and a mutual intercourse among all the members of Christ. This we maintain with the Saints in heaven by thanking and praising God for their triumphs and crowns, imploring their intercession, and receiving the succors of their charitable solicitude for us: likewise with the souls in Purgatory by soliciting the divine mercy in their favor. Nor does it seem to be doubted but they, as they are in a state of grace and charity, pray for us; though the Church never address public suffrages to them, not being warranted by primitive practice and tradition so to do.

... St. Odilo, abbot of Cluni, in 998, instituted the commemoration of all the faithful departed in all the monasteries of his congregation on the 1st of November, which was soon adopted by the whole Western Church. The Council of Oxford, in 1222, declared it a holiday of the second class, on which certain necessary and important kinds of work were allowed. Some dioceses kept it a holiday of precept till noon; only those of Vienne and Tours, and the order of Cluni, the whole day: in most places it is only a day of devotion. The Greeks have long kept on Saturday sevennight before Lent, and on Saturday before Whitsunday, the solemn commemoration of all the faithful departed; but offer up Mass every Saturday for them.... The dignity of these souls most strongly recommends them to our compassion, and at the same time to our veneration. Though they lie at present at a distance from God, buried in frightful dungeons under waves of fire, they belong to the happy number of the elect. They are united to God by His grace; they love Him above all things, and amidst their torments never cease to bless and praise Him, adoring the severity of His justice with perfect resignation and love.... They are illustrious conquerors of the devil, the world and hell; holy spirits loaded with merits and graces, and bearing the precious badge of their dignity and honor by the nuptial robe of the Lamb with which by an indefeasible right they are clothed. Yet they are now in a state of suffering, and endure greater torments than it is possible for any one to suffer, or for our imagination to represent to itself in this mortal life.... St. Cæsarius of Aries writes: "A person," says he, "may say, I am not much concerned how long I remain in Purgatory, provided I may come to eternal life. Let no one reason thus. Purgatory fire will be more dreadful than whatever torments can be seen, imagined, or endured in this world. And how does any one know whether he will stay days, months, or years? He who is afraid now to put his finger into the fire, does he not fear lest he be then all buried in torments for a long time.... The Church approves perpetual anniversaries for the dead; for some souls may be detained in pains to the end of the world, though after the day of judgment no third state can exist.... If we have lost any dear friends in Christ, while we confide in His mercy, and rejoice in their passage from the region of death to that of life, light, and eternal joy, we have reason to fear some lesser stains may retard their bliss. In this uncertainty let us earnestly recommend them to the divine clemency.... Perhaps, the souls of some dear friends may be suffering on our account; perhaps, for their fondness for us, or for sins of which we were the occasion, by scandal, provocation, or otherwise, in which case motives not only of charity, but of justice, call upon us to endeavor to procure them all the relief in our power.... Souls delivered and brought to glory by our endeavors will amply repay our kindness by obtaining divine graces for us. God Himself will be inclined by our charity to show us also mercy, and to shower down upon us His most precious favors. 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' By having shown this mercy to the suffering souls in Purgatory, we shall be particularly entitled to be treated with mercy at our departure hence, and to share more abundantly in the general suffrages of the Church, continually offered for all that have slept in Christ."